PARIS, France — After seven weeks of tries and tribulations and grand hopes of a new winner on the Rugby World Cup, we’ve gone full circle back to the two southern hemisphere powerhouses. Those days of French optimism and the sea of Irish green all willing their teams to a maiden final seem eons ago. Instead it’s back to the two staples: New Zealand and South Africa, who have won six of the nine World Cups to date.

It’s a fixture encased in inescapable nostalgia. There will be echoes of that famous 1995 final: Jonah Lomu, Joel Stranksy’s drop-goal, Nelson Mandela handing the trophy to Francois Pienaar. The Rainbow Nation. Back then when the game was on the verge of going professional. A bright future.

Yet here we are 28 years later with the game facing numerous challenges both on and off the pitch. It’s been a week where they’ve tried to map out the future of the sport, but questions and uncertainties remain. One of the few constants, though, has been the guarantee that whenever the Springboks meet the All Blacks, it delivers.

Both have the rarest ability of being able to ignore noise, and just carry on in their own lane, trusting the processes and collective knowledge from the past and present to reach the pinnacle of sport. But in a sport where you’re so used to hearing players attempt to downplay the significance of occasions through their professional gaze, this one is different. The magnitude transcends it.

“It’s huge,” Springboks captain Siya Kolisi said. “We’ve prepared as hard as we can. We know what to expect. I don’t think as a player it will ever get any bigger.”

Kolisi was just four years old when the Springboks won in 1995. When they triumphed in 2007 with John Smit lifting the trophy in the Stade de France, he was 18 and played for the Cheetahs, but went on to the Western Province academy. It was there he met Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber for the first time. That trio masterminded the Boks 2019 triumph and has steered them to within one game of winning a historic fourth title.