Former Springboks head coach Nick Mallett believes the Test between New Zealand and South Africa in Wellington this weekend could be a “watershed moment” for the current world champions.
After three rounds of action in this year’s Rugby Championship, the Springboks have found the going tough as they have only won one match – against Australia in Cape Town – with their two defeats suffered against the Wallabies in Johannesburg and the All Blacks in Auckland respectively.
That means that Rassie Erasmus‘ troops are in joint bottom spot in the standings – alongside Argentina – with New Zealand setting the pace at the top of the table and Australia occupying second position.
The Springboks suffered a 24-17 defeat to the All Blacks at Eden Park last weekend and Erasmus’ reaction to that defeat was to ring the changes to his run-on side for Saturday’s rematch with their arch rivals at Sky Stadium.
Cheslin Kolbe the only backline player who retains his spot
Most of the alterations have been made to the Boks’ backline with speedster Cheslin Kolbe being the only player who remains in his same position on the right wing.
Utility back Canan Moodie, who has been shifted from the left wing to outside centre, is also in the run-on side again alongside the likes of Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (fly-half), Aphelele Fassi (full-back), Damian Willemse (inside centre) and Ethan Hooker (wing), while experienced stars like Handre Pollard, Willie le Roux, Jesse Kriel and Damian De Allende will not be in action after being demoted from the matchday 23.
And Mallett believes it could be a changing of the guard for the world champions as they build towards defending their title as world champions at the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.
A lot of Mallett’s “watershed moment” comment has to do with the Boks’ style of play with the backline set to line up against the All Blacks in Wellington indicating that the Boks are set to employ an attacking approach, which is the brainchild of their attack coach, ex-All Blacks fly-half Tony Brown, as opposed to the conservative one which they used last weekend.
“I think when you talk about the dangers, the dangers here are, it feels to me like a bit of a watershed moment in this team’s development,” he told the Talking Boks podcast with Brenden Nel.
“It is for the coaches. They’ve been trying to push a more expansive game. And then they went back to a conservative game against Australia. Then we had a conservative game plan against New Zealand, which was right.
‘We haven’t played well for three games’
“It was in the rain. Both of them were in difficult, picky circumstances. We haven’t played well for three games.
“We probably lost the game ourselves with mistakes we made this last weekend. So the watershed moment is, is it time now for those old players to move on and the younger players to step up?
“That is one big, big issue. And if they really perform well on Saturday and you suddenly find that there’s a smoothness to our attack and there’s a danger and a risk for the opposition whenever we have the ball in hand, then things will move on very rapidly, I think.”
Mallett warned, however, that there is another issue which concerns him and that is regarding the expansive style of play which has the potential to backfire on the Boks.
“The second one, the one which I’m more worried about is that in the enthusiasm to do well, we’re going to overplay,” he said.
“And if you overplay, like we did against Australia, and both Sacha and Manie (Libbok) can do that, they can just feel: ‘Hang on, you know, there is a bit of space, let’s have a crack, let’s have a go’.
“And you just have to be temperamentally so sound at taking the right opportunities and not trying to score a try with every single time you touch the ball.
“So those two things, I think the pressure is there now, two losses out of three, you get three out of four. You know, it’s not good in South African terms. And then also, are we going to overplay?
“Will we go from overplaying in the Australian game with Manie to very conservative with Pollard to overplaying again? I hope not.
“I hope not. But there is a risk, there is a danger.”