The Springboks capped off a stellar year by scooping three top honours at the World Rugby Awards in Tokyo on Sunday.
Rassie Erasmus was named as Coach of the Year, the Springboks were named Team of the Year and Pieter-Steph du Toit was named as World Player of the Year.
SA Rugby said that the awards were rich reward for a year in which the Springboks completed the unprecedented double of winning both the Rugby World Cup and the Castle Lager Rugby Championship in the same season.
The team finished the year at No 1 in the world rankings, for the first time since 2009.
The Springboks won 10 out of 12 tests, scoring 424 points and 52 tries and conceding only 138 points and 10 tries – only four of them in seven matches at the Rugby World Cup.
Statistically, it was the most successful Springbok season since 1998 when the team was in the middle of a 17-match winning streak.
It was the first time South Africa had won any of the top three awards since 2009.
The titles came a little over 24 hours after the team had collected the Rugby World Cup for the first time since 2007, with a 32-12 win over England at the International Stadium Yokohama in Japan.
The Springboks were chosen in preference to fellow Rugby World Cup semi-finalists England, Wales and New Zealand and Japan.
