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Cape Town - Sadly for all fans, the Springboks have hit rock bottom, not once, but TWICE, in the past 14 months.
Brighton, September 19, 2015 will forever be inscribed in the Springbok annals as the darkest day (to that point) as Heyneke Meyer's team opened their Rugby World Cup campaign with a 34-32 defeat to Eddie Jones' Japan.
The result stunned the rugby world, as minnows Japan recorded the greatest upset in World Cup - perhaps rugby full-stop - history.
Fast forward exactly 14 months to November 19, 2016 (clearly the Boks should not play Tests on the 19th of the month) and the Boks were once again the laughing stock of international rugby as Allister Coetzee's side crashed to a 20-18 defeat against 13th-ranked Italy.
The same Italian side who the weekend prior had conceded 10 tries in losing 68-10 to an All Blacks 'B' side (in fairness is there really such a thing as an All Blacks 'B' side?).
It goes without saying no player would choose to be part of either of the all-time lows in Springbok rugby.
One would be galling enough, but no fewer than SEVEN Boks have BOTH defeats on their CVs!
Bryan Habana, Pat Lambie, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Lood de Jager and 'Beast' Mtawarira all started both defeats, while Adriaan Strauss (benched for Japan, started as skipper v Italy) and Trevor Nyakane (benched for both) are the men no doubt considering themselves bad omens in the Green and Gold jersey.
