The All Blacks were superb at Mount Smart Stadium, particularly in the first quarter, but aside from the first 20 minutes where the Boks really struggled to keep a lid on the All Blacks, I don’t think Jacques Nienaber’s charges will be too disappointed with the form they showed last weekend. Five years ago, the Boks could have taken 40 points against the All Blacks, but their fightback underlined the resilience in this side.
An interesting statistic from the 104th Test match between the old foes showed that the All Blacks kicked 28 times as opposed to South Africa’s 14. Those numbers did seem a little bit strange. Normally if you look at those stats they will be more even or probably the other way round from a kicking perspective. You could say it was a bit of shadow boxing in the first Test between the two sides in the build-up to a World Cup. The sides meet again next month at Twickenham and it appeared that the Boks were also holding back some tactics at the lineout, having hardly contested the All Black throw-ins in Auckland.
One New Zealand scribe wasn’t impressed with the Bok display and wrote: “This was an old Springbok side. A team of World Cup-winners nearer the end of their careers than the start.”
This story is from the July 23, 2023 edition of The Rugby Paper.
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This story is from the July 23, 2023 edition of The Rugby Paper.
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