{"id":131556,"date":"2025-09-10T01:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T01:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/131556\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T01:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T01:05:12","slug":"eden-park-was-great-but-the-springboks-will-win-by-15-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/131556\/","title":{"rendered":"Eden Park was great but the Springboks will win by 15 now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019ll be intrigued by the reaction, should the All Blacks<\/a> lose to the Springboks on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New Zealand\u2019s 24-17 win over South Africa, at Eden Park last weekend, has been greeted in the usual way on these shores, with proclamations that corners have been turned and that the All Blacks are poised for an era of dominance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Never mind the ineptitude the team\u2019s demonstrated all season. Forget being beaten by Argentina<\/a> in Buenos Aires.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Video<\/p>\n

Vermeulen explains Etzebeth\u2019s absence from\u00a0team<\/p>\n

\"VideoVermeulen explains Etzebeth\u2019s absence from\u00a0team<\/p>\n

No, let\u2019s indulge in the type of triumphalism that makes rugby folk in this country look daft and doesn\u2019t do the team any favours in the long run.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I wrote that the All Blacks would win in Auckland, for reasons that were entirely obvious. There was the unbeaten run at Eden Park, the shame of defeat to the Pumas<\/a> and the additional motivation of it being Ardie Savea\u2019s hundredth test.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our home, but every stadium in New Zealand<\/a> is our home,\u201d Savea said afterwards.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the mindset we should have. We shouldn\u2019t wait for Eden Park to get up with a performance like that.\u2019\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s the rub.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The All Blacks were always getting up for that game. Just as the Springboks will this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Given that, you\u2019ll have to forgive me for not being surprised when the visitors win by 15 points at Sky Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s give credit where it\u2019s due. The All Blacks did enough to win last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They were intense, physical and reasonably accurate. But, and I say this often, that\u2019s their job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The idea that we should garland them with praise because of it genuinely does my head in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No-one doubts that the team can rouse itself in that fashion, occasionally. But when Savea himself says that there\u2019s too many times when they don\u2019t, I think we should listen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Springbok team that played at Eden Park was too old. I think they played a style of rugby unsuited to the conditions and I thought their skill-execution was lamentable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through good management, South Africa<\/a> has the luxury of depth and coach Rassie Erasmus<\/a> has acted accordingly. He\u2019s made sweeping changes for this week and I expect they\u2019ll physically overwhelm the All Blacks this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s partly as a result of their own embarrassment at what happened in Auckland, but also because of our insistence upon patting the All Blacks on the back for winning a game they were never going to lose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m unconvinced by this team, in terms of personnel and tactics. I think they lack mental toughness and I won\u2019t easily forget the demolition of their scrum at Eden Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Should the All Blacks win again this week, I\u2019ll be first in line to congratulate them. In doing so, they\u2019ll have shown me there\u2019s more substance to this team than I\u2019ve given them credit for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s assume they lose. Let\u2019s assume the Springboks dominate. Let\u2019s assume that there aren\u2019t enough motivating factors to spur the All Blacks into a competent performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What then? Will we panic? Will folk call for wholesale changes to the squad and the sacking of Scott Robertson? Will there, heaven forbid, be any credit given to the South Africans?\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s okay to reserve judgement on things. It\u2019s okay to commend the All Blacks on what they did last week, without declaring them world cup winners in waiting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just as it would be perfectly acceptable to treat defeat this week as part and parcel of rugby at this highest level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re asking me to pick which team, out of New Zealand and South Africa, is the better one, I\u2019m choosing the latter. The result of one Rugby Championship<\/a> test doesn\u2019t change that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where we are with these All Blacks. Their good days are decent, but too infrequent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until we see them put five, 10, 15 quality performances together, it\u2019s simply too early to suggest they\u2019re on the verge of greatness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if our memories are too short or our expectations too low but, to me, winning games at Eden Park is a given, not an achievement.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ll be intrigued by the reaction, should the All Blacks lose to the Springboks on Saturday.\u00a0 New Zealand\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-131556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}