South Africa’s Super Rugby absence hurts All Blacks

What makes sport so addictive is because it can change from one week to the next, as evidenced by the All Blacks’ win against the Springboks at Ellis Park. The leadership group of the All Blacks stepped up against the Boks in a hostile environment at the spiritual home of South African rugby.

The All Blacks looked into the areas that gave them confidence and they backed their attack and their ability to take the Springboks on.

They got the ball in and out of the scrum nice and quickly and moved the ball and got it away. Set-piece ball from a scrum is the best attacking ball to have on a rugby field. The All Blacks were more efficient in what they did from that point of view and also revisited what they were wanting to achieve from the kicking game.

Having scored a solitary try in the first test against the Springboks, the All Blacks notched four tries in the second test.

Whether it was through the power game of running direct or the speed and agility game, the All Blacks had to find a way to breach the line and at Ellis Park their attacking play fired up.

The All Blacks have snapped their three-match losing streak but they knew that they were not going to win a championship by having everything go their way.

I knew the All Blacks hadn’t become bad rugby players overnight and the easy thing to always say is: ‘‘The coach is bad, just get rid of him!’’

I also don’t think there’s a lack of coaching intellectual property in New Zealand and I’m sure Ian Foster would be able to pick up the phone to any of the former All Blacks coaches and they would help in a heartbeat.

By sticking with Foster, the All Blacks haven’t forgotten their own lessons. I’m not talking about 2009 but about 2007. NZR didn’t panic after 2007 and they still didn’t necessarily see success in 2009 but never pushed the panic button and the rest is history with back-to-back World Cups in 2011 and 2015.

While the All Blacks did brilliantly to win the second test, I’m wondering now if the fact that the South African teams are not playing Super Rugby anymore has not hurt the New Zealanders more than they thought it would.

What New Zealand basically had since professional rugby was South African teams coming to their shores for three weeks and, with the exception of teams like the Bulls and Sharks who won every now and again, other than that we were cannon fodder for them. New Zealand were used to our players and knew the physicality that was coming.

I feel for the challenges Foster has faced. South Africa no longer participating in Super Rugby has affected New Zealand more than it has affected the Boks.

It is coupled with the fact that there is a lot more cohesion in this South African side, since Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber took over in 2018, than there is in this New Zealand team.

I don’t think it’s one or the other – it’s a combination of those two factors that have led to the All Blacks’ difficulties. Gary Gold is the USA Eagles head coach, and was Springboks assistant when they beat the All Blacks three consecutive times in 2009.

By sticking with Foster, the All Blacks haven’t forgotten their own lessons.