{"id":518379,"date":"2026-03-04T15:37:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T15:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/518379\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T15:37:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T15:37:14","slug":"only-three-teams-can-win-2027-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/518379\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Only three teams’ can win 2027 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victor Matfield believes that South Africa, New Zealand and France will be the \u2018only\u2019 challengers for the 2027 Rugby World Cup title.<\/p>\n

The Springboks legend was speaking after Dave Rennie was appointed as All Blacks boss, succeeding Scott Robertson, who was sacked in January.<\/p>\n

Robertson departed despite obtaining a 74 per cent win rate, which was better than that of his predecessor, Ian Foster.<\/p>\n

However, there was criticism over the All Blacks\u2019<\/a> performances under the Crusaders legend, while the players reportedly did not come out to bat for him in the end-of-season review.<\/p>\n

Rennie<\/a> will now take them into the global tournament in Australia and, despite that coaching upheaval, Matfield reckons that New Zealand are among the favourites.<\/p>\n

\u2018Different class\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s only three teams that can win the next World Cup and that\u2019s South Africa<\/a>, New Zealand or France, those three teams will be in a different class,\u201d he said on the Rivals podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose three can beat each other on any day. The All Blacks will always be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still feel for Scott Robertson, he\u2019s probably the best provincial or club coach ever to come out of New Zealand and it\u2019s a pity he couldn\u2019t pull things together with the All Blacks, but the All Blacks are going to be tough [at the World Cup<\/a>].\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir John Kirwan\u2019s verdict on Dave Rennie appointment as Springboks \u2018blamed\u2019 for NZ Rugby decision<\/a><\/p>\n

Matfield has therefore disregarded England\u2019s chances, who went on a 12-match winning run before successive Six Nations losses recently.<\/p>\n

Ireland, Argentina and hosts the Wallabies will also fancy their chances of going far, but the former Springboks record cap holder feels that South Africa, France and New Zealand are clear of the rest.<\/p>\n

It will still be a challenge for Rennie to get the All Blacks back to that level, but the ex-second-row believes the new head coach has an advantage over Robertson, having been out of the New Zealand system for almost a decade.<\/p>\n

Jump from club to Test level<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very difficult to go from being a current provincial or franchise coach into that role as All Blacks coach. That\u2019s something that made it very difficult for Scott Robertson,\u201d Matfield said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had such a strong Crusaders culture that\u2019s worked for him, and then it was difficult because it needed to be an All Blacks culture; it can\u2019t be a Crusaders culture where all the other guys need to adapt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Dave Rennie, he\u2019s been in the system in New Zealand. He\u2019s been away a little bit, so he comes in and is starting something new, \u2018this is the All Blacks culture I want\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not coming from the Crusaders or the Highlanders or the Hurricanes or the Blues, so I think that helps a little bit as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: All Blacks head coach announcement: Five takeaways as Dave Rennie raises NZ Rugby issue amid \u2018unavoidable\u2019 Rassie Erasmus parallel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Matfield believes that South Africa, New Zealand and France will be the \u2018only\u2019 challengers for the 2027…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,2592,818,1182,1736,44,760,15131,1183,85,1185],"class_list":["post-518379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-france","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-victor-matfield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518379","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=518379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}