Eleven tries. That is all 99 Tests in the green and gold have left behind on a scoresheet, and the scoresheet has never been the place to look for what De Allende does. Saturday at 10bet Ellis Park takes him to 100 Test caps and makes him the tenth man in Springbok history to get there.
Look along the backline he runs out in and the try column widens fast. Kurt-Lee Arendse has 25 from 32 caps. Cheslin Kolbe has 22 from 50. Jesse Kriel, standing directly outside him, has 23 from 90.
De Allende has spent a decade in the same team as those men and has scored eleven. That is not a criticism, and it is not a measure of his attacking work. It is a measure of where in the move he does it. What De Allende does for the men outside him…
The inside centre channel in a Springbok side is where attacks are made possible rather than finished. It is the carry that gets a side over the gainline so the next phase starts on the front foot. It is the tip-on that puts Kolbe into a gap two passes later, and the offload out of a double tackle that turns a stalled ruck into a break.
It is also the tackle that turns a nine-metre gain into a two-metre one, then the same again eighty times, then again the following Saturday, for twelve years.
None of that lands in a try column. Selectors notice anyway.
Rassie Erasmus, Springbok head coach:
“We are all very excited for Damian, and to achieve this milestone in this series makes it even more special. He’s a great team man, and servant to the game, so we hope we can make it a memorable day for him. That said, his focus all week has only been on this match, and he will certainly not let the occasion shadow what he has to do on the field.”
De Allende debuted against Argentina in 2014, when this team was still being asked what it was for. He was in the midfield when the World Cup was won in Japan in 2019 and again when it was defended in France in 2023. Very few players anywhere hold two of those, and he has never made much noise about either.
The club De Allende joins on Saturday is a short one. Eben Etzebeth, Victor Matfield, Bryan Habana, Tendai Mtawarira, John Smit, Jean de Villiers, Percy Montgomery, Willie le Roux and Siya Kolisi. Nine men across more than a hundred years of Springbok rugby, and De Allende becomes the tenth.
There is a small cruelty in the timing. Kolisi got there in Paris last November as the ninth. This week he is the man stood down as a precaution so that Paul de Villiers can wear six — and so De Allende walks out as the tenth without a former captain’s milestone sharing the day.
The queue does not stop moving either. Pieter-Steph du Toit leads the side out for his 99th Test. If he plays the second Test of this series, South Africa will produce two centurions inside eight days.
“Congratulations, Doogz! It feels like he’s been there for more than a thousand Tests already. What a player!” – 🎙️Jay
The milestone traffic around this fixture is heavier than usual. Etzebeth pushes his all-time Springbok record out to 143 caps the moment he takes the field. Ox Nche runs out for his 49th, one short of fifty. Jasper Wiese needs three more to reach the same mark. Manie Libbok needs three points to reach 150 in Test rugby.
De Allende and Kriel, meanwhile, stretch their own record as the most-capped centre pairing the game has produced. A partnership built almost entirely on the unglamorous half of the job, and one that has now outlasted every combination sent out against it.
The starting fifteen carries 850 Test caps between them, split 477 among the forwards and 373 across the backline, with a further 193 sitting on the bench. Average it out and every forward in the run-on side has sixty Tests behind him, every back has fifty-three.
That is the weight South Africa brings into the first match of a series that has not existed in this form before. The Castle Lager Double Malt Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry runs to four Tests, and it marks the first time since 1996 that the All Blacks have undertaken a traditional tour of South Africa.
The long ledger between the sides still belongs to New Zealand. Played 110, South Africa have won 43 and lost 63, with four drawn, and 1 850 points scored against 2 269 conceded. A 39 percent win rate across the whole rivalry.
The short ledger reads differently. Five of the last six meetings have gone South Africa’s way since August 2023, the World Cup final in France among them. The last time the teams met in Johannesburg, in the 2024 Rugby Championship, the Boks took it 31-27.
Rassie Erasmus, Springbok head coach:
“Many of the matches between the sides have come down to the wire, so it’s important that we use the chances we create and ensure that our discipline is on point. It’s going to be a big battle, but the entire squad is excited about the match and are looking forward to it.”
Kick-off is 17h10 and the match is live on SuperSport.
Somewhere around the hour mark, if it is the kind of Test everyone is expecting, the ball will go flat and short into the twelve channel with three All Black forwards already leaning into the collision. De Allende will take it. The gain will be a metre and a half, the ruck will be quick, and nobody in the stadium will make a sound.
That has been the whole century.
