Ten years ago, South African won the Rugby World Cup for a second time.
Yet as they arrive in Dublin for a November International clash against Ireland, the Springboks are at a low ebb.
Results in recent years have been dire. They suffered their biggest defeat of all time in September when New Zealand steamrolled them 57-0 in Auckland.
About this time last year, they lost to Italy (coached by Irishman Conor O'Shea) for the first time in their history, among other losses to England and Wales.
At the World Cup two years ago, they also lost sensationally to Japan although they recovered to reach the semi finals.
But what has gone wrong and what steps are South Africa taking to rebuild their once imperious rugby pedigree?
South African rugby journalist Craig Ray joined Joe last night to discuss.
"In terms of pure results this season, they've been a little bit better. They've won five out of nine, which is only just marginally above 50% compared to last year where they won 33% of their matches - just four out of 12," said Ray.
"So it's certainly been a downwards trend since the 2015 World Cup when you pointed out they finished third - not without their problems in that tournament - but they did take the All Blacks to the wire in that semi final and Springbok rugby wasn't in a desperate place. At the end of 2015 they were up to No 3 in the world and by the end of last year, I think they were down to No 7 in the world."
Among the issues was a skills deficit which has been "exposed at Super Rugby level" and that an "inferiority complex" when it comes to New Zealand has inflicted "psychological damage".
Head coach Allister Coetzee ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy
"We're trying to play catch up in terms of skills but we've then moved away from our core strengths which Eddie O'Sullivan rightly points out is physicality. But physicality still gets you pretty far if you underestimate the other basic principles of set piece superiority, good defence and a good kicking game, you'll go a long way," said Ray.
"But South Africa moved in particular in 2016 away from all those tenets that have been so successful and tried to create a running team without the skills and forgot about their basic strengths which are forward dominance and defence in particular and a good kicking game. The combination of that was disastrous really."
Ray also feels head coach Allister Coetzee has "not been true to himself" as he has moved away from his own standpoint of defence first and kicking game to go for attacking flair and a running game, with a consequent detrimental effect on their defensive record that now sees them concede an average of three tries a game.
Meanwhile, Rassie Erasmus has left Munster to "rectify South African rugby" according to Ray and that "Allister Coetzee's time is up" as head coach.
And the challenge of how to deal with the mass of players based abroad has seen a policy of selecting foreign based players with 30-caps or more except in World Cup years when "everyone's available at the coach's discretion".
"It might be a good policy in the long term because the player brain drain is so massive that you have to do something to stem it," said Ray.
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