{"id":536688,"date":"2026-07-21T10:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T10:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/536688\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T10:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T10:12:15","slug":"has-rennie-found-new-zealands-answer-to-pieter-steph-du-toit-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/536688\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Rennie found New Zealand’s answer to Pieter-Steph du Toit? – new zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

OPINION: Springbok utility forward Pieter-Steph du Toit will go down as one of, if not the best player in South African rugby history, and the All Blacks might have found their answer to him in Tupou Vaa\u2019i.<\/p>\n

Du Toit and Vaa\u2019i both played lock and flanker during the first leg of the Nations Championship, showing their versatility and ability to adapt across both positions.<\/p>\n

Vaa\u2019i played 160 minutes after missing out on New Zealand\u2019s opening round clash against France, whilst Du Toit racked up 240 minutes across the Boks\u2019 three Tests against England, Scotland and Wales, respectively.<\/p>\n

Head-to-head match-ups during the Nations Championship<\/p>\n

Despite playing fewer minutes, Vaa\u2019i had 14 line-out takes compared to Du Toit\u2019s 11, with both players stealing three line-out balls.<\/p>\n

Du Toit made 50 carries whilst Vaa\u2019i made 23, with Du Toit carrying 186 metres, of which 105 were post-contact metres, and Vaa\u2019i racking up merely 41 in that department.<\/p>\n

Du Toit also edged the defenders beaten department with seven, whilst Vaa\u2019i got past three.<\/p>\n

Continues below\u2026<\/p>\n

The New Zealander edged his South African counterpart in the tackles made department with 50 compared to Du Toit\u2019s 43, with both players executing four dominant tackles in the process.<\/p>\n

On the scoring front, Du Toit outscored Vaa\u2019i by two tries to zero and edged the try assist numbers as well by two to one.<\/p>\n

It would\u2019ve been interesting to see what the stats would\u2019ve looked like had Vaa\u2019i played all three Nations Championship Tests, but considering the above highlighted numbers, it shows that his work rate and versatility is right up there with one of the best the game\u2019s ever produced.<\/p>\n

So have the All Blacks found their own version of Du Toit? The numbers would suggest that they did, but the true answer would come during the Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry series next month, where they will face each other (barring injury) in all likelihood in all four Tests.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OPINION: Springbok utility forward Pieter-Steph du Toit will go down as one of, if not the best player…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-536688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536688","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=536688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}