Why the ever-evolving Springbok bench still has the edge over ‘Le Bomb Squad’

The Springboks’ Bomb Squad runs on during the Rugby Championship Test against New Zealand in Johannesburg on 31 August 2024. (Photo: Anton Geyser / Gallo Images)

By Jon Cardinelli

18 Mar 2025

France adopted South Africa’s 7-1 strategy to win the Six Nations, but there’s evidence to suggest that the Springboks have already taken the Bomb Squad concept to the next level.

Is the 7-1 bench split between forwards and backs a ground-breaking innovation or an existential threat to the game as we know it?

From the outset, it seems important to address the latter, given that the anti-Bomb Squad lobbyists continue to assert that the inclusion of six or seven forwards on the bench poses a genuine danger to player welfare.

springboks bomb squad The Springboks’ Bomb Squad runs on during the Rugby Championship Test against New Zealand in Johannesburg on 31 August 2024. (Photo: Anton Geyser / Gallo Images)

World Rugby insists that these claims are baseless, and that there is some evidence to suggest that the opposite may be true. With that myth busted, the real debate is whether the Springboks or France will harness this strategy to dominate the Test game.

Indeed, it’s a trend that deserves closer scrutiny after France deployed “Le Bomb Squad” over the course of the recent Six Nations, and after the Boks varied their selection tactics during a monumental 2024 season in which they won 11 of 13 matches.

An analysis of these selections reveals several interesting findings and shows why Rassie Erasmus – as the architect of the original Bomb Squad – remains a step ahead of France’s Fabien Galthié, England’s Steve Borthwick and the rest of the chasing pack.

A brief history of Bomb Squads

When Erasmus took charge of the Boks in 2018, he implemented a series of conditioning strategies with the aim of boosting the level of performance, specifically in the forwards.

The 6-2 split made its debut in the friendly against Argentina at Loftus Versfeld in August 2019, and Erasmus began to use it more regularly at the subsequent World Cup in Japan.

After the Boks destroyed England 32-12 in the final, most hailed Erasmus’ ground-breaking and somewhat bold selections, while a few accused the coach of exploiting a “loophole” to maximise South Africa’s inherent strengths.

The Boks pressed on with the 6-2 strategy, with Erasmus deploying a couple of variations in the lead-up to the 2023 World Cup.

A month before the global tournament in France, he unleashed a 7-1 bench against the All Blacks at Twickenham, and the Boks went on to claim a record 35-7 victory.

At the World Cup itself, the 7-1 was deployed against Ireland in the pool stage (the Boks lost 13-8), and in the final against New Zealand, which the Boks won 12-11.

France follows the trend

In the aftermath of France’s World Cup quarterfinal defeat to the Boks, Galthié decided to pursue the 6-2 split more regularly, with the aim of leveraging the country’s own strengths up front.

No Test team used the 6-2 split more often than France over the course of the 2024 Test season.

While Galthié loaded his bench with six heavies in nine of the 11 matches, Erasmus – who was already starting to strike out in a new direction – used the 7-1 once, the 6-2 six times, and the traditional 5-3 formation six times.

France finished 2024 in fourth place on the World Rugby rankings. But by persisting with a 6-2 bench for an extended period, Galthié learnt what worked and what didn’t – just as Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber did, while fine-tuning the strategy between 2019 and 2023.

France used the 6-2 twice in the 2025 Six Nations, before using the 7-1 for the remaining matches against Italy, Ireland and Scotland. The rewards of the latter selection policy outweighed the risks, as they stormed to a well-deserved – and some might say overdue – Six Nations title.

What was particularly interesting to note was how many of the other teams followed suit over the course of the 2025 tournament.

Overall, the incidence of a 6-2 bench was at 43% over the course of the 15 games staged in the last year’s Six Nations.

By the end of the 2025 tournament, that figure had risen to 63%. France, England and Italy loaded their bench with six (or more) forwards throughout the competition, while Scotland did so three times.

Just as Galthié came to terms with the intricacies of the strategy, so too did Borthwick. England addressed the balance between youth and experience among their reserves – adding veterans like Jamie George and Elliot Daly to the bench – and grew stronger as their campaign progressed.

While Borthwick was initially booed by the Twickenham crowd for his tactics, and criticised by the British media for some of his selections, England emerged with a four-from-five record, and more leeway to build in the seasons to come.

Argentina loaded their bench with six forwards three times last year, and some of the tier-two nations – such as Japan, Georgia and Uruguay – have also recently experimented with the strategy.

Conversely, teams such as Ireland have favoured the 5-3 formation in all but three games over the past year, while Wales have stuck to the traditional split in all but one fixture during that period.

The All Blacks and Wallabies are the only teams to have bucked the trend completely – although it remains to be seen if they will stick with the 5-3 split later this season.

Devil in the details

What’s interesting about the Boks is that Erasmus and Nienaber continued to experiment with their squad selections since that first World Cup win in 2019.

The original 6-2 split included two props, a hooker, two locks and a versatile loose forward – which is essentially a second tight five with the potential to boost the team at the set pieces once it’s introduced.

Later, the 6-2 incorporated two loose forwards at the expense of the extra lock.

More recently, Erasmus has included a complete back row on the bench, with the aim of amplifying the side’s breakdown effort and lifting the overall tempo.

The 7-1 allowed the Boks to replace seven of their starting forwards, but left them light on backline replacements – and when injury struck, the likes of Kwagga Smith and Pieter-Steph du Toit were asked to play a role in the wider channels.

The key to all these strategies is squad depth.

Like France, South Africa boasts quality in depth, and Erasmus can field an A or B team without compromising his team’s quest for victory.

And after building that depth for seven years, the coach also has the option of picking several excellent yet very different bench formations.

Selections are often shaped by the playing conditions, travel demands, opposition and even the nature of a specific tournament.

As we saw last year, Erasmus has developed his group of players to the point where he can select a team for every situation. Clearly, it’s possible for the Boks to beat the All Blacks with a 6-2 split in Johannesburg, and to harness a 5-3 bench to achieve the same result in Cape Town a week later.

When they head abroad and are presented with the challenge of a six-day turnaround between matches, they have the resources to field a 7-1 against Scotland in Edinburgh, before switching to a 5-3 ahead of a showdown with England in London.

So much has changed since 2019. Nobody knows who Erasmus is going to pick from week to week, and the Boks are the least predictable Test side on the planet.

France, England and others have harnessed the power of a loaded bench in recent times, but it’s Erasmus’ superior understanding of this dynamic as well as South Africa’s range of established options that may continue to set the Boks apart in 2025. DM

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South Africa

A brief history of Bomb Squads

France follows the trend

Devil in the details