The Springboks lifted the Web Ellis Cup for the third time – in equally spaced 12-year intervals – with Erasmus promising that the search would now begin for consistency.

“When I took over two years, 18 months ago, it was 618 days to the World Cup and we planned to win it,” he said.

“It is now something like 614 days until the British & Irish Lions arrive in South Africa and we will start planning for that now – as well as the Rugby Championship and the domestic competitions like Vodacom Super Rugby and the Currie Cup.”

The Springboks were a Rugby World Cup pre-tournament favourite – behind New Zealand – before the tournament began.

However, an opening round pool defeat by the All Blacks and a narrow semi-final victory over Wales, had seen England installed as favourites among most non-South African observers.

The Boks made it three Rugby World Cup triumphs at three attempts with an emphatic performance that extended the team’s record of not conceding a try in a final.

The challenge was now to maintain South African rugby at those peaks, without plunging into the troughs in between, said Erasmus.

“The big thing for us now is to be consistent,” he said.

“What Eddie [Jones] has done with England when they won 23 out of 24 games and was starting to be consistent and with what Warren [Gatland] did with Wales – starting to be consistent – that’s where we need to be.

“We were terrible at that in 2018 – we were up and down – but this year we’ve have played 12 and lost one so we have got that consistency back.

“And yes, we’ve got the World Cup here, but going into next year if you lose the first test people forget about the World Cup and that’s not where we want to be.”

Erasmus said that South Africa had the rugby resources to consistently claim top honours.

“We have the players and the support to always be challenging and I am really excited about the future,” said Erasmus.

This year the team did the unique double of claiming the Castle Lager Rugby Championship and Rugby World Cup in the same year – the latter after losing a pool match (something that no other team had ever done before either).

Maintaining that high level of competitiveness was now the focus.

“We want to get consistency now and work towards the British & Irish Lions and the World Cup after that,” he said.

“Hopefully we can get that right.”