{"id":535075,"date":"2026-07-20T11:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T11:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/535075\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T11:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T11:50:11","slug":"ex-all-blacks-bullish-greatest-rivalry-prediction-we-will-give-the-springboks-the-american-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/535075\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-All Black’s bullish Greatest Rivalry prediction: ‘We will give the Springboks the American one’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former All Blacks fly-half Stephen Donald is backing Dave Rennie\u2019s men to beat the Springboks<\/a> in all three Tests in South Africa.<\/p>\n

The side arrives in South Africa next month for the inaugural Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry Tour, with their opening games against the Sharks, Stormers and Bulls before the Test series opener against the Boks at Ellis Park. After a midweek game against the Lions, the two nations then square off in Cape Town and Soweto before a series finale in Baltimore.<\/p>\n

Stephen Donald\u2019s bullish prediction<\/p>\n

Donald believes that the All Blacks<\/a> can replicate the Sean Fitzpatrick-captained side in 1996 and win all three matches in South Africa against the back-to-back World Cup winners before \u2018getting sick of winning\u2019 and letting the Springboks<\/a> win the series finale in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was confident for the last couple of weeks,\u201d the 2011 World Cup winner said on the Breakdown show when asked about the team\u2019s prospects against Rassie Erasmus\u2019 men.<\/p>\n

\u201cRennie talked about the kicking game getting the balance right. I reckon last night the boys had to confront slow ball more than they had in the first couple of weeks, and with all the entertainment aspect of a game, they still had the ability and smarts to go right: \u2018We are going to kick here, and we are just going to put up a box and start again\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I love the way we\u2019re playing; confident look we might give the Boks the American one; just we might be sick of winning by then. We\u2019ll go first three; my confidence is high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Latest World Rugby rankings: All Blacks have Springboks in their sights as England close gap on rival duo<\/a><\/p>\n

All Blacks coach makes candid revelation on what he expects from South African tour<\/a><\/p>\n

Justin Marshall\u2019s take<\/p>\n

While Donald boldly predicted a clean sweep in South Africa, fellow former All Black Justin Marshall stressed how difficult it is to beat the Boks away from home.<\/p>\n

However, he did hail the work done by Rennie and his coaching team this July in the Nations Championship. While Donald was bullish in his prediction, Marshall believes that the coaching team will be well aware of the challenge that awaits them. Still, he thinks that they should be confident heading to the Republic for the series he believes to be perfectly set up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been going well, and a good side comes and puts pressure on you. They put you into places you\u2019re not used to being in,\u201d the ex-scrum-half remarked.<\/a><\/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

\u201cI think the All Blacks did that to a very good Ireland side. They force them into errors that they don\u2019t usually make, and you know that\u2019s credit to the team and the coaching group. I certainly don\u2019t think Dave Rennie is underestimating what is in front of him in South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s again what you put the boots on for. It\u2019s the toughest challenge in the game to go there and win a series. We\u2019ve only ever done it once in \u201996.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will be very well grounded in that respect, but I think confident we can go toe-to-toe with the best teams in the world. No problem whatsoever. This is great. It\u2019s set up so well. One and two in the world. Four tests on the bounce. Here we go. Can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Nations Championship Team of the Week: Springboks bolter and England stars among healthy mix as one selection needs \u2018no thought whatsoever\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Blacks fly-half Stephen Donald is backing Dave Rennie\u2019s men to beat the Springboks in all three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1463,1464,17731,111,43,139,69,1466,213,27338],"class_list":["post-535075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-justin-marshall","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-stephen-donald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}