Springboks 1, Australia 2, All Blacks 3 – prediction
Keep cool and stay calm, but don’t stray from your natural game.
That’s the message from captain Sam Whitelock to the crop of players set to make their All Blacks debuts against France in Dunedin tonight.
Whitelock, who will play his 99th test, has four uncapped players to keep an eye on, including flanker Shannon Frizell and centre Jack Goodhue, who will both start. Firstfive Richie Mo’unga and lock Jackson Hemopo will come off the bench.
‘‘The biggest challenge for any person going into a new team, especially the All Blacks, is playing their natural game. They’ve been selected for a reason, they’re good footballers, so hopefully they just go out and play their natural game,’’ Whitelock said.
‘‘Those guys are super excited, as we all were in our first, and we still are. It probably makes my job easier, they’re so enthusiastic to learn and to do well. If anything, you’ve got just got to tell them to relax a little bit.’’
The All Blacks wrapped up preparations for the final match of the three-test series with their captain’s run at Forsyth Barr Stadium yesterday.
Whitelock labelled the week’s preparation as ‘‘pretty good’’. However, similar words were said ahead of last weekend’s ragged win in the second test in Wellington.
While the All Blacks are favoured to wrap up the series 3-0, you get the feeling the public won’t accept anything but a razor sharp performance and a convincing win.
Another bumbling performance will only stoke the fire of people such as South African rugby pundit Mark Keohane, who has already predicted the All Blacks will finish behind the Springboks and Wallabies in this year’s Rugby Championship.
‘‘We need to go out and play well,’’ Whitelock said when asked if his team needed to make a statement.
‘‘No matter what’s applied to us from outside, it’s us on the inside that are really driving it. I’m excited to see what the boys can come up with.’’
The All Blacks’ leadership group hasn’t hid the fact they didn’t adjust to the French tactics and match circumstances in Wellington, something Whitelock reiterated from a captain’s point of view on the eve of the third test.
‘‘A couple of things. I’ve got to keep getting better the whole time. The All Blacks are in decline and will finish behind the Springboks and Wallabies in the looming Rugby Championship.
That’s the early and bold prediction from leading South African rugby pundit Mark Keohane.
As the Boks try to whitewash a struggling England team in Cape Town this weekend, Keohane has talked up their rapidly growing game under respected new coach Rassie Erasmus.
Keohane has seen glaring holes in the All Blacks’ struggles against an unfairly undermanned French team during their clashes.
‘‘The Springboks will win the Rugby Championship. The All Blacks won’t finish in the top two,’’ Keohane, never short of an opinion, opened his controversial column on Sport24.
‘‘What was there to fear about the All Blacks? To those who put the All Blacks on a pedestal so high that all visual of their fallibility is blurred, take an aerial view of the men in black. You’ll see more inglorious than glorious.
‘‘The core of that wonderfully talented 2015 World Cup squad is gone. The next generation isn’t With the captaincy, making sure no matter what happens, if we’re up and down ourselves with the yellow cards, we have a good plan.
‘‘That’s something we probably weren’t quite as sharp as we needed to be [last week].’’
The other thing Whitelock stressed was the importance of not getting ahead of themselves, no matter how tempting it was to go wide early and often under the lid.
‘‘Take an aerial view of the men in black. You’ll see more inglorious than glorious.’’
Mark Keohane
anywhere near as potent.’’
Keohane sees a Springboks side on the rise and argues that on comparative performances over the past fortnight, the Boks would have beaten the All Blacks twice had they been playing each other.
Keohane said the All Blacks ‘‘were woeful for an hour against a very limited French team in Auckland’’ and, despite having an extra player after the controversial 12th minute red-carding of French fullback Benjamin Fall, ‘‘the All Blacks were even worse’’ in last weekend’s second test.
The 2018 Rugby Championship starts in August. The All Blacks play the Springboks in Wellington and Pretoria, and play the Wallabies in Sydney and Auckland.
In other words, the All Blacks need to dig in at the breakdown, with and without the ball.
‘‘Here, because the ground is always hard and the weather is nice and still . . . if you give teams fast ball, it’s very, very hard to stop them.
‘‘I’m sure both sides will be putting a lot of energy into that area and it will be interesting to see how it goes compared to last week.’’