The Springboks can lose one of their games against the All Blacks and still win the Rugby Championship but breaking even in the miniseries to be played in SA over the next fortnight will represent failure for the world champions.
The New Zealanders shouldn’t be underestimated. The All Blacks came within one point of the Boks in the 2023 World Cup final in Paris. On their day, they can beat anyone.
However, given the different stages the two teams find themselves in their respective developments, it would be a backward step in the Boks’ standing as the global leaders if they repeat what they did in 2022, when a resounding win in Mbombela was followed by an upset loss in Johannesburg that saved Ian Foster his job.
The All Black coach stayed on until the World Cup, but has subsequently been replaced by Scott Robertson. The new coach saw his team bounce back impressively at Eden Park from the first defeat to Argentina, but they are still perceived to be on the back foot and underdogs against Siya Kolisi’s team.
That view would have been reinforced when Robertson lost his highly regarded assistant coach Leon MacDonald to what was ascribed to philosophical differences. It was a reminder that the Kiwis are at an embryonic stage of their development in a new era.
Robertson’s appointment was a break in the trend of the past 20 years in New Zealand. From 2004, when Graham Henry replaced John Mitchell, there was continuity in the All Black coaching appointments that effectively kept the job in-house, with assistant coaches replacing the outgoing coaches to provide continuity. That has been broken for the first time in two decades.
Though the Boks have made some key changes to their coaching personnel and have lost Jacques Nienaber, who was the head coach when SA triumphed in France, it has effectively been the Rassie Erasmus show since the start of 2018 and has remained so. Without denigrating Nienaber, for he is an outstanding coach, the changes may even have improved the Boks by introducing a much-needed new dynamic to their attacking game through the appointment of New Zealander Tony Brown.
For the All Blacks it is all new for the players who have stayed on from the previous World Cup cycle. Inevitably, that must lead to the occasional teething problem in the communication system, something that many Kiwi pundits felt was the All Black problem before the Auckland game. Macdonald’s decision to quit confirmed that impression.
There have also been more changes to the All Black playing personnel since France than there have been for the Boks. The Kiwi second row was good in the return meeting with the Pumas, but considering their season as a whole, starting with the series against England, it does appear they have lost a lot through the departure of Brodie Retallick, as well as Sam Whitelock and the retirement of long-serving scrumhalf Aaron Smith.
There is an expectation within New Zealand for the All Blacks to win every game, just like there is of the Boks in SA, but there is also an acceptance that they are in a rebuilding phase. That is not the case with their opponents in these two games. Yes, new players such as Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu have been introduced with 2027 in mind, but the refreshing is being done around a settled and experienced core.
Duane Vermeulen has retired and is now working in the Bok coaching staff, but Jasper Wiese, who should return to the playing squad in some capacity this week after serving his suspension, has played enough for the Boks to soften Vermeulen’s absence.
The Boks go into the games with huge expectations as opposed to the hope that will accompany the All Blacks, and rightly so after two successive World Cup triumphs and the growth evident in the SA game.
The hosts will be aiming for nothing less than two wins and will know only too well how anticlimactic and disappointing it will feel if they don’t hit their target. Apart from the experience of squandering an advantage two years ago against these opponents, they had a more recent one in the series against Ireland.
The series between the world’s No 1 and No 2 sides ended as a stalemate, but for most South Africans, not least a Bok team eager to announce their superiority, it felt like a defeat. As the rankings indicate, the Boks are better than the All Blacks, with their superiority being somewhere between the one point they won the World Cup final by, and the 28 that separated the teams at Twickenham before the tournament.
I won’t be alone in holding that view, which is why the pressure is squarely on the Boks. These games are being played at home so one win won’t be enough. They must win both or it will be a backward step, at least in the global perception.
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