{"id":821376,"date":"2026-07-24T18:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T18:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/821376\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T18:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T18:18:19","slug":"sir-steve-hansens-unexpected-all-blacks-plan-to-negate-springboks-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/821376\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Steve Hansen’s ‘unexpected’ All Blacks plan to negate Springboks strength"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legendary All Blacks coach Sir Steve Hansen believes that Dave Rennie should \u201creshape\u201d the way they think about the aerial contest in order to negate a key Springboks<\/a> strength.<\/p>\n

New Zealand will head to South Africa next month as they prepare to face the back-to-back world champions in four Test matches.<\/p>\n

It is a tour which could effectively define their season as they look to put themselves in a good position ahead of World Cup year in 2027.<\/p>\n

Under the guidance of new boss Rennie, the All Blacks<\/a> developed nicely in the Nations Championship, but their series with the Boks will ultimately define where they truly stand in the world game.<\/p>\n

Springboks\u2019 fundamentals<\/p>\n

South Africa<\/a> still have the best set-piece while their kicking game and work under the high ball is ahead of every other nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny good team, if you take away what they want then they automatically have got to start thinking. They don\u2019t expect that to be the case, they expect to go and get what they want,\u201d Hansen<\/a> told the Rugby Unity podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Africa want physicality so if you\u2019re the ball carrier you can\u2019t allow them to physically dominate you so you\u2019ve got to use your footwork in the contact.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to make sure that your breakdown work is good because of that footwork into contact so just deny them the opportunity to impose themselves on top of you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want a high ball contest so you\u2019ve got to find a way to take that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir Steve Hansen: The \u2018critical\u2019 thing the All Blacks must get right in South Africa as the players have to be \u2018uncomfortable\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

It is the aerial game which was a big weakness under Rennie\u2019s predecessor, Scott Robertson, especially when World Rugby altered the \u2018escort\u2019 law.<\/p>\n

They were not really tested in that facet during the Nations Championship, but the Boks will no doubt target high ball dominance next month.<\/p>\n

As a result, Hansen, who was joined on the show by ex-Wallabies boss Ewen McKenzie, has put forward an idea to potentially negate the impact South Africa could have with their box-kicks and \u2018up and unders\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got two guys running back for the ball, one of them is your guy, one of them is theirs, and we always let their guy jump for the ball,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t run a block so we\u2019re starting to see one or two teams do it, but in those contested kicks, why can\u2019t the guy running back catch it?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat South Africa do really, really well if you look at them is they don\u2019t catch that many but they force you to drop most of them because they jump and cause havoc in the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re legitimately contesting the kick so I\u2019m sitting on this ball waiting to come, it\u2019s a good kick, I\u2019ve got this guy coming at me, he\u2019s in my space, if I don\u2019t get that right, it\u2019s a knock-on.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s reshape how we think about this and say, righto, you and I are both running back for this kick, we both have the same opportunity to catch it, surely?<\/p>\n

\u201cEwen\u2019s playing for South Africa, I\u2019m playing for the All Blacks, I\u2019m going to win the ball. If I don\u2019t win it, at least I\u2019ve got somebody at that 12 o\u2019clock, so that if I do knock it down it\u2019s going to go into his arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take away that opportunity for South Africa to get a free shot of interfering with that catcher, who by the way is our last line of defence if we don\u2019t get someone in behind him.\u201d<\/p>\n

State of the Nation: All Blacks \u2018rejuvenated\u2019 under Dave Rennie as new boss \u2018lays the groundwork\u2019 for huge Springboks series<\/a><\/p>\n

Doing the \u2018unexpected\u2019<\/p>\n

Hansen coached one of the best teams the sport has ever seen as he guided them to Rugby World Cup glory in 2015.<\/p>\n

At the time the All Blacks were regarded as one of the great innovators and the 67-year-old wants Rennie to \u201cthink outside the square\u201d this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like doing the unexpected against them because they want to be able to go chug, chug, chug, chug, chug. Yes, they\u2019ll tell you they play it at pace but that\u2019s after they\u2019ve chugged you and physicalled the s*** out of you,\u201d he added<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen they\u2019ll speed it up because you\u2019ve got nothing left and it looks like they\u2019re going faster but they\u2019re really not, they\u2019ve just got more energy because you\u2019re knackered trying to prevent their physicality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink outside the square and do it in a way that they can\u2019t have what they want because then they\u2019ll get frustrated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will starting thinking, \u2018this is not right, I\u2019m the top dog here\u2019, and then they start to question themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Rating every All Blacks player from the Nations Championship: Three big standouts in new era but star forward \u2018disappoints\u2019 as Dave Rennie sends message<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary All Blacks coach Sir Steve Hansen believes that Dave Rennie should \u201creshape\u201d the way they think about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,818,1182,1736,44,760,234131,1183,85],"class_list":["post-821376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sir-steve-hansen","tag-south-africa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821376","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=821376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}