Tokyo (AFP)

All roads lead to Yokohama: England, painstakingly prepared for four years and its failure at home, defies the powerful South Africa, resurrected the last two years, Saturday (10:00 French) in the final of the World Cup in a reissue of that of 2007 won by the Springboks (15-6).

The superstitious in the South African camp can cling to the numbers. Not those who say that a world champion has never lost on the road to the title (South Africa has been beaten by New Zealand in pools), but those wanting their team to raise the trophy Webb- Ellis every twelve years.

She had won the first of her two world titles in 1995, at home after the Apartheid, a victory rich in symbols for a country on the road to reconciliation.

Twenty-four years later, if the Boks are guided by their first black captain, Siya Kolisi, the picture has not changed much: Rassie Erasmus sees in the suburbs of Tokyo the opportunity "to make people forget the worries of life for a few minutes, hours, days or months ".

"South Africa needs it, we know it (...) it's clearly an additional motivation," added the coach.

Two years back, however, it seemed hard to imagine Erasmus and the Springboks in the final: the first was not yet in office and the second came out of two cataclysmic years, under the orders of Allister Coetzee, marked by defeats (their first in Italy in 2016, their largest in New Zealand in 2017).

Called to the bedside of the antelopes ("springboks" in Afrikaan) sick end 2017, Erasmus cleaned the green house by imposing rigor and work. And, on the ground, returning to the traditional forces of South African rugby: a bunch of fierce fronts, a conquest of brazen and a game on the foot precise.

- "One or two occasions" -

The last step is however much higher: England aims for a second title after 2003 and has rolled all his opponents in Japan, including Australia in the quarterfinals (40-16) and New Zealand, double title holder silenced for the first time in the competition since 2007 (19-7).

"It is choking you, we will only have one or two opportunities, we will have to be able to seize them," warns Erasmus.

To achieve this degree of technical, tactical and physical mastery, four years after the failure of the 2015 World Cup, where he was eliminated, at home, for the first time in his history in pools, the XV of the Rose has sweated under the command of Eddie Jones.

For a longer time than the Boks with the Erasmus program: almost four years, during which the Australian technician has carefully marked, since the first day, the path of glory. Returning, like his South African counterpart, to national fundamentals, ferocity and tactical intelligence.

- "Impose our game" -

From a Grand Slam in the Six Nations Tournament in 2016 to a snap in 2018 (five straight defeats), Jones has scheduled the Farrell, Tuilagi, Vunipola and Itoje to succeed Wilkinson, Johnson, Dallaglio and Robinson, sacred in Australia sixteen years ago.

D-Day has arrived. "We have had four years to prepare for this game, we clearly know how we are going to play tactically, we are physically fit," said Jones.

One of the keys to this final will be precisely the ability of the English to dominate in the fight the rough and massive South Africans, who will enter again, during the match, six forwards to force the decision.

If it succeeds, then England could achieve an incredible and unprecedented "Grand Slam" of the nations of the South (South Africa after Australia and New Zealand) to crown a second world crown from then amply deserved.

© 2019 AFP