In New Zealand, the regular way of things in rugby is skewed from the rest of the world when it comes to how the rugby sphere as a whole – fans and media – perceive the All Blacks as a sporting entity. It’s quite simple. You are either the best team in the world, a team who wins trophies merely for existing in any competition they enter, or you are a collection of bums, failures and Tesco Value jesters that aren’t fit to wear the shirt of the Mighty All Blacks™.
It’s a unique dynamic that’s tough to find anywhere else in the game. No rugby sphere likes losing, obviously, but it’s generally agreed that pretty much every side will go through a downswing at some point and you just have to go through it. Unless you’re the All Blacks. If you’re the All Blacks, you are expected to win every single game and every single tournament regardless of what came before. In 2016, Ireland had never beaten the All Blacks before taking them on in Chicago. New Zealand, who were coming off a run as double World Cup champions and being the #1 ranked team in the world for the vast majority of the previous 11 years, were favourites, as they always are but, spoiler alert, Ireland finally managed to beat them.
The reaction in New Zealand was… well, uniquely New Zealandish. The loss to Ireland back then was considered a legitimate black mark on the careers of the senior players and coaches involved by some of their media and fans. Friends of mine in New Zealand at the time likened it to Ireland losing to Namibia. Keep in mind that New Zealand had won their previous 19 games before that fixture – including a World Cup victory – but it didn’t matter.
In New Zealand, you are expected to win, always, every time, with no excuses. In some ways, it’s an admirable trait when it comes to self-regulating standards. Nothing but endless victory is acceptable in New Zealand so you can get a feeling for where they are right now. A drawn Lions series, losing to England in the 2019 Rugby World Cup semi-finals, a covid bubbled Rugby Championship win in 2021 stemmed the bleeding somewhat during two years of relative isolation mid-pandemic before losing four of their last five tests since November 2021.
The series loss at home to Ireland was, in some ways, the straw that broke the camel’s back. The All Blacks have never been in a place like this. The last time they lost more than two games in a five-game block was in 2009 against a generationally good Springbok side coming off a World Cup win in ’07 and a victorious Lions tour a few months prior. New Zealand lost three games in four back then but the problem with looking to history for guidance is that we know what happened afterwards so we can see the story as it played out.
This is all new. Sure, we know that in 2009, the All Blacks got it together after a bad run and ended up winning a World Cup two years later. Maybe they’ll do the same this time or, maybe, this is the end of the Mighty All Blacks as we’ve known them for the last 100 years or more.
Nothing is set in stone, all empires fall and that’s the tide that the All Blacks are fighting against in this upcoming two-game series against the Springboks in South Africa. A win on Saturday would go a long way to washing away the existential crisis that has engulfed New Zealand since last month and go some way to reassuring the All Blacks of their place in the game.
But it will be extraordinarily difficult.
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Beating the Prime Springboks in South Africa is as tough as it gets.
I know they lost a second test to Wales a few weeks ago but I would posit that the team Wales beat wasn’t really the Prime Springboks. There was a lot of mixing and matching in that second test as Jacques Nienaber shuffled his deck to have a look at some depth options ahead of next year’s World Cup. That Shuffleboks side lost to Wales by a single point.
In the final test, the Springboks looked back to something resembling their best and won pretty comfortably to seal the series but it didn’t mask the feeling that South Africa were in something close to flux under Nienaber. The 61% win rate the Springboks had during 2021 is the first big drop-off they’ve had since 2019 when they won 83% (!) of their games on the way to winning the World Cup that year.
It wasn’t bad – far from it – but South Africans’ had gotten used to the tag of being World Champs so any deviation from the levels that saw them triumph in Japan were always going to be received like a bowl of chowder you didn’t order.
That was followed up with an incoming summer series against Wales that saw a narrow first test win that could easily have been a loss, a Shuffleboks loss a week later before a fine win to round out the series. It was enough to keep the rumbles of discontent that had been echoing in the distance at bay but, like the All Blacks, these next two games have the capacity to change the narrative completely heading into a World Cup season.
The last few weeks have seen elements of the Springbok media sphere struggling to come up with a coherent reaction to New Zealand’s defeat to Ireland and the logical leap one should take from that result – that the Springboks must be favourites in this incoming two-game series in the Rugby Championship.
Some of those saying that the Springboks have to win this series are, of course, shit housing. They are setting up one outcome as being acceptable so, whatever happens, they have an angle to criticise.
“Oh, you beat the All Blacks? Why are you so happy? You were favourites, of course you won,” to be followed with “I can’t believe you lost to the worst All Blacks side in 20 years. Springboks in a shambles lol lol” if they lost.
The truth is a version of both. The Springboks should be beating this All Blacks side because they are far from your Daddy’s All Blacks at the moment. It is also true that the All Blacks have, traditionally, responded well to adversity and have a good recent-ish record in South Africa.
On balance, I think the Springboks’ truth is… truthier. I can’t shake the feeling, however, that the All Blacks are a bad matchup for the Springboks at the moment in the same way that Ireland seem to be a bad matchup for the All Blacks.
Just as it always seems to be, the All Blacks and the Springboks’ destiny is tied to each other. Unfortunately for both, the road to a happy rugby sphere runs right through each other too.
South Africa: 15. Damian Willemse, 14. Kurt-Lee Arendse, 13. Lukhanyo Am, 12. Damian de Allende, 11. Makazole Mapimpi, 10. Handre Pollard, 9. Faf de Klerk, 1. Trevor Nyakane, 2. Malcolm Marx, 3. Frans Malherbe, 4. Eben Etzebeth, 5. Lood De Jager, 6. Siya Kolisi, 7 Pieter Steph Du Toit, 8 Jasper Wiese
Replacements: 16. Bongi Mbonambi, 17. Steven Kitshoff, 18. Vincent Koch, 19. Salmaan Moerat, 20. Franco Mostert, 21. Kwagga Smith, 22. Jaden Hendrikse, 23. Willie le Roux
New Zealand: 15. Jordie Barrett, 14. Will Jordan, 13. Rieko Ioane, 12. David Havili, 11. Caleb Clarke, 10. Beauden Barrett, 9. Aaron Smith, 1. George Bower, 2. Samisoni Taukei’aho, 3. Angus Ta’avao, 4. Sam Whitelock, 5. Brodie Retallick, 6. Akira Ioane, 7. Sam Cane (c), 8 Ardie Savea
Replacements: 16. Dane Coles, 17. Ethan de Groot, 18. Tyrel Lomax, 19. Tupou Vaa’i, 20. Shannon Frizell, 21. Finlay Christie, 22. Richie Mo’unga, 23. Quinn Tupaea
So much of this game hangs in the execution of two key game states going one way or the other.
At this stage, the Springboks’ kick pressure game is one of their defining characteristics in the post-Coetzee era. When Rassie Erasmus introduced this to the Springboks game it was seen as a reversion to type by some. That’s true, in one way, but in another, more accurate, way it was doubling down on the oppressive defensive system he helped to devise with the current Springbok head coach Jacques Nienaber while at the Stormers and that they perfected in one season with Munster.
The features of Munster’s game in 2016/17 are very similar to the Springboks we see today. That season we were first in the PRO14 when it came to the volume of kicks, we had the highest number of tackles, we had the best offensive and defensive lineout in the tournament and a really aggressive, dominant scrum.
What Erasmus and Nienaber understood was that to make your defence an offensive weapon, you had to voluntarily surrender the ball to a part of the field where your high line speed and narrow blitz could stress the opposition into giving the ball back to you where you wanted it – either through a turnover, a knock-on that your dominant scrum could target, a penalty or by forcing them to kick to touch where your extra dominant lineout maul could generate a better offensive position. This was mostly done through the short or mid-range box kicking. I go through some of the main concepts here.
The Springboks are really good at this, especially when they kick on Makazole Mapimpi’s side. That ability to play short and mid-range box kicking has held even in the 50/22 era, where short box-kicking into the opposition’s half has fallen out of fashion harder than Gangnam Style.
Even then, the Springboks have moved with the times in adding a longer, counter-transition style element to some of their exits, with Willemse, Mapimpi and Kolisi playing roles on those longer-range chases. The primary aim of the Springbok’s kicking game is to keep the opposition’s defence in close range so their larger, three-lock build pack with their heavy front row as standard aren’t forced to fill up too much space between kicks. Counter-transition doesn’t come naturally to them.
You can see the spacing here between Mapimpi and the deep pressing line on this exit that comes right after a maul – a common Springbok launch.
This is not ideal because the Springboks don’t want to leave a situation where the catcher escapes both chasers and gets the ball away – something New Zealand are good at – because the runner then has access to open field against bigger, heavier forwards. The Springboks are kicking longer now, and mixing it more off #9, #10 and beyond, but the real worry is that they give the All Blacks too much space to work with on transition.
The biggest fix Ireland had against New Zealand was adjusting our transition defence but, to be fair, we had the personnel in the back to do just that. Our back five is incredibly mobile. We have a guy playing a loose Tighthead Lock/Power Forward role in Ryan, a true Half Lock in Beirne, a Combo Flanker in O’Mahony, a Strike Wing Small Forward in Van Der Flier and a Heavy Combo Flanker in Doris. That kind of back five can cover the kind of ground that South Africa’s back five build cannot.
Lood De Jager – Heavy Support Lock
Eben Etzebeth – Heavy Support Lock
Siya Kolisi – Combo Flanker
Pieter Steph Du Toit – 4/6D Lock
Jasper Wiese – Power Forward
One of the downsides to playing a three-lock pack and having a very heavy front row is that you need to ensure you keep them in “range” of the opposition runners. It is harder to play a longer, more contemporary kicking game with a pack build this heavy. It’s why I think they have Salmaan Moerat (loosehead lock), Franco Mostert (Half Lock) and Kwagga Smith (Strike Wing Small Forward) to come off the bench for the second half – to be able to lengthen their kicking game if needs be.
For the first half, I think they’ll go mostly short off #9 to get the most out of their heavier starting build. Don’t be surprised if you see Willemse go diagonally after Caleb Clarke on the left backfield on a deep series of pullbacks to the second or third layer – something the Springboks are using a lot of – to get him one on one with Arendse in the air.
Something like this.
But it isn’t without risk. A pack build this big needs cover from the 4/6D lock to cover an awful lot of ground, especially when you don’t compete at the breakdown. The Springboks only go after the most obvious of breakdown turnovers with this starting build to keep as many defenders in the line active as possible. They will commit to two/three man hits to win the gain line and slow you before you hit the ground, as opposed to sending in poachers.
The problem is, when you combine that with a kicking game where you might retain 20/30% of your box contestables at best, you need your 4/6D lock to be your best, most effective defender. When the Springboks were at their peak in 2019, Du Toit was the best 4/6D lock in the world. These players are different from half-locks in that they are more like locks than they are backrows from a role perspective, but they are selected as part of very heavy pack builds.
Du Toit is 6’7″/120KG. A lineout specialist, a heavy mauler, a devasting back row scrummager in this Springboks pack and a decent carrier of the ball when required. He was an outstandingly mobile defender for his size but he seems to have lost a step after a series of injuries.
Watch this clip of a short, contestable box kick-off a restart and look at how the Welsh use depth to draw out the Springboks blitz and isolate Du Toit on a number of occasions.
They scored in 12 phases off a Springboks exit. Not ideal. The worry for the Springboks is that if they kick too long against this All Blacks side, they don’t have the transition defence to get good, dominant stops early. If the All Blacks break out in transition, they will score tries and look capable of doing it on every possession.
If they kick too short, they risk opening up 50/22 opportunities for the All Blacks and give them field position inside their 10m line.
For me, the Springboks will need to kick diagonally off Pollard/Willemse a lot from first receiver or deeper into the second layer. Not long, not short, but diagonally onto Clarke and Jordan’s wing with Mapimpi, Arendse, Am, Willemse and Kolisi tracking hard to cover the second ball after the kick.
Scrums are a good result for the Springboks in these scenarios, regardless of who gets the put-in. I’d start there and then let the All Blacks start kicking back. The key for the Springboks? Stay patient, don’t bite on counter-transition and resist the temptation to trade length for length off the boot unless you’re controlling the sequence of play.
