The more opposing teams try to come up with weird tricks in an attempt to defeat the All Blacks, the more the men in black stay ahead.

chance of winning. I was part of the Springbok coaching setup when we played the All Blacks at Newlands in the Rugby Championship last year and that was our plan.

We played well, capitalised on three tryscoring opportunities and fought our way back to get ahead in the match. And then we had one poor kick-chase – where two players fell asleep – and Damian Mckenzie cut through our backline defence and scored a crucial five-pointer.

We should have beaten the All Blacks, but they scored two tries off our mistakes, which is typical of them.

You can do well for long periods of the game against New Zealand, but the reason they are the best team in the world is because if you make one mistake, they will punish you.

The Irish decided to keep the ball away from the All Blacks and you could argue that that approach worked best when they claimed a famous win in Chicago in 2016, which snapped the All Blacks’ 18-match winning streak. One reason it worked for Ireland is because they are really tight when they retain ball possession, don’t put much width to their game and mostly play off No 9.

However, as Australia underlined in the Bledisloe Cup opener in Sydney, if you hold onto the ball in the wrong areas of the field and turn it over against the All Blacks, you create your own nightmares. The visitors scored five secondhalf tries, each off the back of turnovers and within less than a handful of rucks of regathering possession. The All Blacks are ruthless exponents of transitional play.

By all accounts, the All Blacks don’t have a weakness in their game whereby opposing teams can attack them. Steve Hansen’s men are a fit, motivated team that performs the basics well. It’s not that the All Blacks do something different – they just do everything better than the rest.