It is not so much about redemption for the Springboks in Cape Town on Saturday. It is more about accuracy, intelligence and an appreciation of what the All Blacks did to them at Ellis Park.
If the 33-16 scoreline did not reflect the first 65 minutes, there is no doubting the All Blacks deserved the win. They absorbed so much pressure in that first hour. They defended with courage and clarity and punished every Boks hesitation.
Five tries to one can’t be disguised or sugarcoated; equally the 21 unanswered points in the final quarter.
The recall from Ellis Park is necessary if the Boks are to level the four-Test series. The Boks had 11 entries into the All Blacks 22-metre area and scored just the one try from those attacking field positions. The All Blacks won 14 turnovers and their try-scoring reward was four times that of the Boks from strikes inside the Boks’ 22-metre area.
There is a difference between physical superiority and Test-match superiority. The Boks had the former and the All Blacks the latter.
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus this past week has been vocal that he got his planning and his substitutions wrong.
Erasmus this week has been calm and measured, as has been the norm for the past 12 months, in which the Boks went 12 matches unbeaten. Last week he was the opposite.
Law and order, from the outside looking in, seems to have been restored within Erasmus’s head and the Bok camp.
There has been little barking coming from within the camp and next to no noise. The Boks have also cut out the noise of the naysayers who went from predicting a four-nil series win for the Boks to a four-nil series win for the All Blacks.
The passion within South Africa for the Springboks knows no half measures.
Control would have been Erasmus’s theme all week and control will be the trigger on Saturday.
Handrè Pollard and Cobus Reinach, at halfback, and Siya Kolisi’s presence as starting flanker and captain, give the run-on XV more presence and leadership authority.
Kolisi is expected to start, having been bracketed with Paul de Villiers earlier in the week, and the inspirational captain’s value cannot be overstated.
What Ellis Park gave the South African rugby public and media is a wonderful reminder that the All Blacks are again a team, in every sense. They played with heart, pride, purpose and they played for each other.
Pieter-Steph du Toit plays his 100th Test, a week after Damian de Allende’s 100th, and it is imperative that the celebration comes post a victory and not at the expense of a win.
Pollard’s selection is the correct one for the occasion and it is not one made because of the merits of Manie Libbok or Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
The possibility of rain influenced the decision, as did the need to play the most accurate goalkicker available.
The Boks have won by a point before against the All Blacks and Pollard did not miss with four penalty attempts in the 12-11 win in the 2023 World Cup final. No South African was critical of playing style or supposed crowd entertainment on that night in Paris.
It will be a similar situation on Saturday as a South African rugby public again appreciates that trepidation that comes with doubt. For the past year there has been no doubting of the Springboks, but it took just one awful last quarter to crush the utopia among supporters.
The doubt within the squad is not there. The players and coaches know there were tries butchered and big moments that fell apart through inaccuracy as much as All Blacks pressure.
What Ellis Park gave the South African rugby public and media is a wonderful reminder that the All Blacks are again a team, in every sense. They played with heart, pride, purpose and they played for each other.
It was great to observe for someone who has love for the rivalry and an understanding of why it is rugby’s greatest rivalry.
In the context of Saturday’s match, Pollard understands the currency of the scoreboard as much as he is a part of the history of the rivalry.
Inside of him, Reinach has identified the breakdown as the battle the Boks must solve. The All Blacks attacked South Africa’s ball, slowed the release and turned Bok urgency into panic. Kolisi’s return strengthens precisely that area and restores the defensive organisation Erasmus felt was missing.
The bench has also changed because the celebrated bomb failed to explode at Ellis Park. Deon Fourie brings calm, leadership and breakdown menace. Lood de Jager, Thomas du Toit and Cameron Hanekom bring force, while Feinberg-Mngomezulu offers a different finish if the match opens up.
Dave Rennie’s selection carries a different message: the All Blacks trust what worked.
Rennie expects the Boks to kick more, maul more and again live inside New Zealand’s 22. He has also promised a better All Blacks scrum, improved discipline and greater gain-line force.
The Boks were not 17 points inferior at Ellis Park, but they were 17 points poorer in execution. Cape Town will show whether that defeat was an aberration or an exposure.
I am backing a Boks response, ideally by 10 points, but in this country one point more will be just fine.
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