Victor Matfield and Jean de Villiers have predicted the Springboks to retain the Webb Ellis Cup in an all-southern hemisphere World Cup final.
The two former Springboks captains appeared on Betway South Africa‘s YouTube channel to make their World Cup predictions.
Providing a blunt analysis of the World Cup draw, De Villiers said that “all the teams that could actually win the World Cup” were in Pool A and B, which includes all top five teams in World Rugby’s rankings.
Unsurprisingly, both Matfield and De Villiers agreed that the Boks, in Pool B with Ireland and Scotland, will go through to the playoffs unbeaten. The pair hesitated on who would join South Africa in escaping the pool, as they believe there could be an upset when Scotland face Ireland.
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New Zealand were given the nod to top Pool A, with France finishing as runners-up, setting up a quarter-final clash between the tournament hosts and the Springboks. Both Matfield and De Villiers were happy with this outcome, saying they “prefer France” to New Zealand as South Africa’s quarter-final opponent.
On the other side of the draw, Matfield and De Villiers snubbed the ever-improving Pacific Island sides, despite Fiji’s recent win over England at Twickenham and Samoa impressive performance against Ireland.
Instead, they predicted that Australia and Wales would be the quarter-finalists from Pool C, while Argentina will top Pool D, with England as runners-up.
Matfield and De Villiers agreed that none of the northern hemisphere nations would make it into the semi-finals, predicting the All Blacks to beat Ireland, Wallabies to knock-out England and Argentina to send Wales home.
This meant semi-finals between the Wallabies and Springboks on one side and Argentina and New Zealand on the other. New Zealand and South Africa were decided as the finalists, with the Springboks writing history by defending their title for the first time and winning their fourth World Cup title.
Photo: @Springboks/Twitter