When the final whistle sounded on the successful South African Tri-Nations campaign last week, it was inevitable that the critics should almost unanimously describe this as the best ever Springbok team.
Comparisons are unfair, however, as how do you compare John Smit's Bok team with Philip Nel's 1937 tourists, who beat New Zealand in a series after travelling there by ship, playing several provincial games and a series in Australia?
As this is not a leap year, the relevance of which will become apparent later, we also cannot say that this was the most successful ever season for the Springboks. What we can say with reasonable certainty though is that this era of Bok players is the finest and most successful since 1992 - and a lot of it comes down to the continuity which has been a feature of the last six years.
The trophy cabinet at SA Rugby has also never been as laden as it is now. If a thief with a taste for rugby silverware was to try and whisk away the trophies that reside in South Africa at the moment, they would require a ship, not just a lorry, for the World Cup, the Tri-Nations, the British Lions series winners pendant, the Super 14, and the IRB World Sevens Series.
But it is the mention of the World Cup that should introduce some temperance to those who would like to claim that this was the finest season ever for Bok rugby. There wasn't a World Cup this year, and no matter what anyone says, the World Cup, the one tournament for which all nations aim to be at their peak, remains the pinnacle of rugby achievement.
Anyone who disputes that should ask themselves the following question: "What was more memorable, Francois Pienaar lifting the World Cup trophy at Ellis Park in 1995, or Gary Teichmann doing the same to the Tri-Nations three years later?"
Which image of John Smit do you remember more clearly: Him holding up the Tri-Nations in 2004 in Durban, or the World Cup at Stade de France in 2007? The answer to both those questions should be the same.
Measuring the greatness of a team in a particular season just on facts and figures does not leave this Bok side standing alone either. Francois Pienaar's team did not lose a game during the first World Cup winning year of 1995, and Gary Teichmann's side lost only one game in the whole of 1998 and completed an 18-match winning sequence along the way.
Even the other method which we might favour, which is to measure it on how dominant the Boks seemed to be on the field this year, and that they certainly were, might need to take cognisance of the weaknesses of the teams they beat.
The current All Black team does not measure up to the following combination: Cullen, Wilson, Bunce, Little, Lomu, Mehrtens, Marshall, Zinzan Brook, Sean Fitzpatrick etc etc. Would this Bok team have beaten that All Black team?
Your guess is as good as mine, the point being that sometimes it is hard, and wrong, to draw comparisons when not all the variables are ever always the same.
What we can say with assurance though, and here everything adds up, is that this era of players, the era that started in 2004 and which will be remembered as "the John Smit era", has been the most successful, and that the players who have been part of the journey are now at the peak of their powers.
The key to the recent Tri-Nations success was that South Africa entered the competition as basically the same combination and playing a similar game to the one that won the World Cup. Only Morne Steyn, Heinrich Brussow, Beast Mtwarira and Pierre Spies, the latter because of injury, were not part of the World Cup campaign two years ago.
That is phenomenal continuity if you compare it to the drop-out rate between 1995 and 1997 - only Os du Randt, James Dalton, Mark Andrews, Ruben Kruger, Joost van der Westhuizen, James Small and Andre Joubert of those World Cup winners were still around for the 1997 Lions series. And Carel du Plessis didn't always pick them.
By 1998, when the Boks won the Tri-Nations for the first time, the drop-out from the Class of '95 was even greater, with only Du Randt, Dalton, Andrews and Van der Westhuizen remaining.
This can partly be explained by the 1995 World Cup winners being on average older than John Smit's winning team 12 years later. But a massive role was also played by the turnover of coaches.
Between 1995 and 1998, the Boks had four different coaches - Kitch Christie, Andre Markgraaff, Carel du Plessis and Nick Mallett. With all coaches having their own ideas and own favourites it is not surprising there was so little continuity in playing personnel.
Since the end of 2003, which was when Rudolf Straeuli departed the scene, the Boks have only had two coaches - Jake White and Peter de Villiers. And after an initial period of uncertainty, De Villiers has largely stuck with White's selections and White's game-plan.
No fewer than five of the eight tight forwards involved in White's first season, when he won the Tri-Nations, were there again in 2009. The key player leadership group has remained the same for the duration of that period, with John Smit, Victor Matfield and Fourie du Preez playing a massive role in the latest success.
The secret to the Bok success of 2009 was that the players who won the World Cup in 2007 had 20 more Tests behind them. It enabled them to use this Tri-Nations to confirm that they deserved their 2007 triumph and it is no coincidence that the most successful era was also the most settled in terms of both coaching and player turnover.
As a gauge of how the different post-isolation eras measure up, here is my post-isolation best Bok team, with their relation to the four best years of post-isolation in brackets: Andre Joubert (1995), James Small (1995), Pieter Muller (1998), Jean de Villiers (2004/2007/2009), Bryan Habana (2007/2009)/or Chester Williams (1995), Henry Honiball (1998), Fourie du Preez (2004/2007/2009), Gary Teichmann (1998), Andre Venter (1998), Schalk Burger (2004/2007/2009), Victor Matfield (2004/2007/2009), Mark Andrews (1995/1998), CJ van der Linde (2007), John Smit (captain - 2004/2007/2009), Os du Randt (1995/1998/2004/2007).