Category: New Zealand Rugby

All Blacks were valiant in 3-1 series defeat but Springboks sent another warning to rest of the world in Baltimore

What is the enduring image of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series? The Springboks put the exclamation mark on their status as World Cup favourites by wrapping up the series 3-1 with victory in Baltimore on Saturday, but in months and years to come where will the mind immediately go when reflecting on this epic?

The reality is that after four Tests of remarkable intensity – a brutal reminder of the levels required to compete with the two biggest beasts in the world game – there are plenty. But it is hard to look beyond the 65th minute of the third Test in Soweto, when the Boks’ tank rumbled over from 20 metres. Malcolm Marx was awarded the try and there would be no more deserving recipient of a player of the series award.

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Kurt-Lee Arendse scores from his own half to swing a 10-try thriller in Baltimore as South Africa win the series with New Zealand by three Tests to one.

Loads of emotion from the players as the anthems are sung.

Hate to venture into cliche land, but try telling them that this is just a ‘money game’.

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New Zealand great made his name at 1995 Rugby World Cup but rapid rise to fame took a toll as his health worsened

Making a film about Jonah Lomu’s life was never going to thrill everyone. The big man’s widow, Nadene, took legal action in an unsuccessful attempt to block the project and declined to be involved. You can’t imagine Mike Catt being overly delighted either. Even 31 years later, the brutal footage of Lomu running straight over the top of England’s full-back in the 1995 World Cup semi-final in Cape Town almost merits an 18 certificate on its own.

Happily, the makers of Lomu went ahead regardless and have managed to shine a fresh light on the biggest rugby phenomenon in history. There was always way more to Jonah’s story than a huge pair of thighs and here it is, laid out in a manner that is thought-provoking, affecting and wincingly nostalgic. As the former All Blacks doctor John Mayhew puts it: “I’m disappointed he didn’t have the life he deserved to have. I wonder, even [with] the magnificent gifts he had, whether he was ever truly happy.”

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• Forecast of unfavourable weather cited as reason

• Aircraft passed less than ‌50 feet above stadium

The South African airline Airlink has cancelled a planned flypast before Saturday’s Springboks-All ⁠Blacks rugby Test as the country’s aviation regulator reviews a similar display conducted by the airline last ⁠week.

Airlink said on ⁠Wednesday ​it had withdrawn its application for a formation flyby ahead of the Rugby Championship clash at Johannesburg’s ⁠FNB Stadium, citing forecasts of unfavourable weather. The South African civil aviation authority (SACAA) is conducting a compliance verification of ⁠the airline’s 29 August flypast over Cape Town’s DHL Stadium.

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Late changes to South Africa’s team smacked of mind games, but reinvigorated New Zealand remain in the hunt

The margins are slim in South Africa this past fortnight and not just on the scoreboard. According to aviation experts, one of the two planes flying over the stadium in Cape Town just before kick-off on Saturday came within 12 to 14 metres of hitting the top of the stand which, depending on your perspective, either ranks as highly-skilled piloting or the most gratuitous of matchday stunts.

Something similar could be said, as it happens, about Rassie Erasmus’s ongoing selectorial high jinks. His initial starting XV announced for the second Test bore about as much resemblance to the one that ultimately took the field as Erasmus did to the late, great Dolly Parton, with no fewer than six of the original lineup missing. It had the desired result in terms of South Africa levelling up the four-Test series at 1-1 but was yet another example of Erasmus toying with the game’s supposed conventions.

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• Cape Town stunt sparks major debate over safety risks

• Airlink insist flyby conducted according to regulations

A pre-game stunt involving two passenger jets flying dramatically low over a stadium in South Africa drew huge cheers from the estimated crowd of around 56,000 people, but also sparked a major debate over safety risks.

The flyby by two Embraer jets, operated by local airline Airlink, happened on Saturday before the second rugby union Test between South Africa and New Zealand in Cape Town.

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• Second Test: South Africa 33-26 New Zealand

• Kolisi and Marx inspire world champions to victory

The Boks are back. Level at one apiece in the series and back to what they do best. Blending power and directness, blood and thunder to edge out far enough ahead of New Zealand and withstand a gutsy comeback from the All Blacks. Throw in some brazen mischief from Rassie Erasmus, who swapped his entire front-row just an hour before kick-off, and this was much closer to a trademark Springboks performance after they were unrecognisable a week ago.

They were far from flawless but constantly ferocious and while All Blacks – particularly given how they finished the match – will head back for the third Test still confident they remain in the series because this was not a knockout blow by the Springboks. It was, however, some counterpunch after last week’s humbling. The third Test is scheduled for Johannesburg but they may consider relocating to Manila.

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Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s inclusion may be a classic piece of misdirection from South Africa in their must-win match against New Zealand

On the face of it, South Africa have been beset by disruption before their most significant match since the successful defence of their World Cup title. Rassie Erasmus had sought to lean further on the Springboks’ set-piece strengths by selecting Handré Pollard at fly-half for the second Test against New Zealand in Cape Town, suggesting a narrow gameplan. A return to the tried and tested. A reliance on what he knows best. Then came news of the “niggle”.

Out goes Pollard, who, according to the Friday morning bulletin, suffered said niggle in training on Wednesday and failed a fitness test 24 hours before the match, and back comes the far more adventurous Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu into the No 10 jersey. Feinberg-Mngomezulu struggled in last week’s 33-16 defeat at Ellis Park, as he did on his comeback from injury against Argentina earlier this month, but the 24-year-old has a skill set that has marked him out as a future global star.

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All Blacks withstand scrum onslaught then tear South Africa apart to take a 1-0 series lead in Johannesburg.

Here come the All Blacks!

Led by Ardie Savea.

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• First Test: South Africa 16-33 New Zealand

• All Blacks score five tries against world champions

As first courses go, this was a delicious appetiser to a series that looks on course to live up to its billing. First blood goes to New Zealand, who withstood a barrage of South Africa scrum pressure and demonstrated a slickness that the double world champions could not live with, clinching a first win at Ellis Park since 2022.

By the end, South Africa had two men in the sin-bin and, given their status as the world’s leading side, this must goe down as a disintegration. There will be a backlash – it is hard to remember a time when South Africa were so inaccurate with the ball in hand – but credit New Zealand for producing a masterclass at weathering the storm and taking their chances.

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South Africa welcome New Zealand for their Greatest Rivalry series with the suspicion that they plan on beating the tourists at their own game

The problem with Test weeks is that they can feel long. Cricketers can play for days on end, footballers every few nights but rugby players step on to the international stage for just 80 minutes per week. The result is a drawn-out vacuum in the buildup and if it’s not a “war of words” unfolding, it tends to be head coaches ramming home their points to the referee.

We lap it up, of course we do as we wait for Saturday to come, and though the pre-match sparring between South Africa and New Zealand is tedious to some, it is all part of the fun to others. This week in Johannesburg has been lively without crossing the line into poisonous. Suffice it to say that the referee Matt Carley is in for one hell of an afternoon in Saturday’s series opener at Ellis Park but the very fact that both Rassie Erasmus and Dave Rennie have stepped on to the offensive demonstrates the magnitude of the coming four-Test series. It promises to be a barn-burner.

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Back-to-back world champions can use Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry to establish themselves as one of the greatest teams of all time

South Africans are supposed to care about the All Blacks more than this. On Tuesday night 14,759 people dotted the 52,000-seat Kings Park Stadium to watch New Zealand dismantle the Sharks 54-0. Durban was cold and soaked, with snow falling elsewhere in KwaZulu-Natal, but even allowing for the weather it made for an awkward advertisement for a grand new project.

Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry – the eight-match tour by New Zealand, culminating in four Tests, including one in the US – is an attempt to turn more than a century of history into a modern commercial property. The unions have formed a 50-50 venture, sharing commercial income, while taking the final Test to Baltimore is expected to generate $4m-$6m more than another game in South Africa. Both unions need the money and professional sport is supposed to generate revenue. But a rivalry cannot live on branding alone.

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• Nonu on Sharks bench after signing for South African side last week

• ‘I thought it was the right thing to do,’ says 104-cap former All Black

South African rugby teams love facing the haka. None have ever replied to New Zealand’s traditional pre-match challenge with another haka until Tuesday.

Ma’a Nonu stepped in front of his new Sharks teammates and performed a solo haka in what will probably be the lasting memory of a tour match the New Zealanders won 54-0 in soggy Durban.

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• Rennie succeeds Scott Robertson in one of biggest jobs in rugby

• ‘I’m really clear on the way I want the All Blacks to play,’ says coach

Dave Rennie has been named the new coach of the All Blacks and charged with taking New Zealand to a fourth World Cup triumph in Australia next year.

The 62-year-old former Wallabies coach beat out Jamie Joseph for one of the biggest jobs in world rugby after an extensive recruitment process that started when Scott Robertson stepped down in mid January after a critical review.

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There is still time before 2027 World Cup to rescue the drooping silver fern but rebuilding an international team is hard and New Zealand’s aura has faded

As a keen surfer Scott Robertson is well aware how abruptly situations can change. One minute you are riding the perfect wave, the next you’re being dumped from a great height and having your world tipped upside down. Which is essentially how “Razor” will now be feeling after being ousted as All Blacks head coach barely two years into his tenure.

On the surface he was everything New Zealand rugby could have wished for. The serial domestic winner who had guided the Crusaders to seven successive Super Rugby titles, the empathetic everyman with the break-dancing skills to match. If anyone could connect with younger generations and encourage everyone to fall in love with the ABs again, surely he was da man?

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