South Africa to host New Zealand in the 2024 Rugby Championship is more appealing than Friday’s Six Nations opener between France and Ireland, writes MARK KEOHANE.
In a rematch of the 2023 Rugby World Cup final, the Springboks will face the All Blacks in back-to-back Tests on home soil this year.
The old rivals are set to lock horns on 31 August at Ellis Park, before a mouth-watering battle on 7 September in Cape Town – a matchup not witnessed since 2017, and for the first time at Cape Town Stadium.
Writing for TimesLIVE, Keohane emphasises that the Boks and the Kiwis reaffirmed their unique rivalry in last year’s showpiece in Paris, attracting a record-breaking audience.
With the South Africans at their strongest and most consistent, having won back-to-back World Cup titles, and the All Blacks on the rise and under new coach Scott Robertson, Keohane anticipates a commercial success for the two clashes in the Republic.
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“The World Cup final replay is a bigger occasion than that between two beaten World Cup quarter-finalists,” he writes.
“The Springboks and All Blacks, in a dramatic World Cup final in Paris in 2023, reaffirmed there is only one rivalry in world rugby that puts the whole rugby world on notice.
“It is a fact, supported by the following statistic: 94 million globally tuned into the 2023 World Cup final between international rugby’s greatest foes.
“South African rugby fans, north and south, will be treated to the biggest two-Test series of the year … SA Rugby can charge whatever they want for tickets for both Tests and it would sell out, and commercially these two Tests are cash cows.”
Photo: BackpagePix/EPA/Yoan Valat