{"id":824592,"date":"2026-07-26T08:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T08:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/824592\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T08:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T08:50:08","slug":"ex-springboks-boss-all-blacks-got-a-fright-and-were-dreadful-in-july-before-taking-a-massive-step-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/824592\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Springboks boss: All Blacks got a ‘fright’ and were ‘dreadful’ in July before taking a ‘massive step up’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Mallett believes that the All Blacks will make the Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry series \u2018complicated\u2019 for the Springboks<\/a> if they maintain their standards.<\/p>\n

The former Springboks boss reviewed the performances of the New Zealanders under new head coach Dave Rennie, with the side going three from three, beating France, Italy and Ireland in the Nations Championship.<\/p>\n

Rennie, who was hired to replace the sacked Scott Robertson, has been hailed for his work since taking charge of the side, but Mallett admits that coaches don\u2019t get scrutinised when the team is winning.<\/p>\n

Nick Mallett on the All Blacks\u2019 performances<\/p>\n

The 69-year-old gave his detailed review of the team\u2019s performances in July as he looked ahead to the highly anticipated Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry<\/a> series.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one ever criticises a coach when he doesn\u2019t lose. He has played three, won three, and the team has improved each game,\u201d Mallett<\/a> said on the Talking Boks podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they got a bit of a fright and got away with a very tough game against France, but they did well to win that one. France they\u2019ve got a lot of strength in depth, and you could say that they might have had five or six or seven players missing from that opening game, but their strength in depth allowed them to be very competitive against the All Blacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought they were dreadful in their first 40 minutes against Italy, very lucky to be in touching distance at half-time, and then really played well in the second half when the Italians didn\u2019t perform, but they took a massive step up against Ireland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether that\u2019s because Ireland were at the end of a long season and they lost focus, but they really took it to Ireland, and they carried the ball really well. I thought their defence was far better. They got off the line quickly; they didn\u2019t allow Prendergast time on the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

Blueprint to beat the Boks<\/p>\n

Mallett believes that the performance against Ireland should be the blueprint of the All Blacks\u2019 game, adding that the New Zealanders have the style of play that will cause problems for the Springboks, particularly their defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took a look at that game and I said to myself if they can maintain the standards that they showed in that game against us we\u2019re in for a really good series here because we\u2019re going to present them with a lot of physicality which they know and their way of trying to avoid us not necessarily to match physicality directly with physicality but they will still be physical but they will try and step they will do their best to step in and out of tackles and still offload,\u201d he continued<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nick Mallett: Why Argentina is a \u2018massive game\u2019 for Eben Etzebeth and other Springboks<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSo if our defensive system is tackling low and allowing them to offload, they will be very dangerous against us. France, Scotland, and New Zealand are teams that want to step through contact and still keep their hands free to make a pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t want to go ruck to ruck. They want to keep momentum all the time with passing out of contact, and the All Blacks are very good at this. But what I really liked about the Ireland game was that their mixture between forwards carrying, playing with width with a two-tiered attack, and also some very good kicking, very, very intelligent kicking as well, which turned Ireland around.<\/p>\n

Sam Warburton explains how other teams are \u2018catching up\u2019 to All Blacks\u2019 \u2018superstrength\u2019 and the Warren Gatland \u2018tough love\u2019 he recommends for England<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if they get that mix right- their kicking game and their contestables, but also kicking for territory, as well as really good forward carries and also playing with a bit of width \u2013 then we\u2019ve got a complicated series to have to handle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have matched them, and over the last couple of years under Rassie, we\u2019ve definitely been the better team, but I think Dave Rennie has got this team aligned under Ardie Savea. They really like the way he\u2019s coaching, and this team is responding to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0The Springboks who should be \u2018disappointed\u2019 after Rassie Erasmus\u2019 squad announcement as Nick Mallett offers theory for controversial snub<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Mallett believes that the All Blacks will make the Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry series \u2018complicated\u2019 for the Springboks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,818,1182,1736,44,166010,760,1183,85],"class_list":["post-824592","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-nick-mallett","tag-rugby","tag-south-africa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824592","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=824592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}