Yes, predictions are a recipe for a face full of egg.
We all have opinions, none of us know the future.
So, lets have a bit of fun and make some predictions...and see who gets all the egg.
AB1 - L by 15
AB2 - L by 6
France - L by 12
Ireland - L by 5
For me, the Boks need to switch up their strategy and start their absolute BIP players in all 4 games. They need to rely less on the bomb squad and more on blasting teams off of the park in the first 40-50 minutes of the game.
It feels to me like the ages of some of the core players has brought performance down enough you can't disperse your best across two forward packs anymore. We simply need more minutes from our best guys.
Marx needs to play 80, RG 60 and Eben probably 50. Ox also needs to stay on the field as for as long as possible. His open field play, for me, supports the argument that we need more minutes from him. We need Jasper and we need him there for 60 as well. One would probably drop Kolisi at this point - he's just not offering the grunt that one would need in order to sweep teams aside within 40-50 minutes. I'd honestly go with Jasper, PSDT, Marco as my loose trio.
The bomb squad hasn't been impressive this year. For Bongi and Koch its been a continuation of a downward trend...IE for the last two years, we've generally been trailing in most of our biggest matches and the b-squad has had to rescue it. This year we saw that we were winning games quite comfortably when our best front row started and then seemed to dip in performance at the introduction of Bongi, Koch.
I seriously hope that Elrich Louw makes a full recovery. We're gonna be needing him, Hanekom and Cobus Wiese at the next WC. I feel like Hanekom is a far better version of Kolisi, Cobus could do enough of what Eben does and Elrich is just better at everything than PSDT.
Those are both my predictions and opinions.