{"id":546061,"date":"2026-07-27T10:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/546061\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T10:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:39:09","slug":"shane-howarth-adamant-all-blacks-concern-can-be-easily-fixed-with-springboks-big-boys-looming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/546061\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane Howarth adamant All Blacks concern can be ‘easily fixed’ with Springboks ‘big boys’ looming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former All Black Shane Howarth expects the defensive side of their game to be tidied up when they take on the Springboks<\/a> next month.<\/p>\n

New Zealand began life under Dave Rennie with three successive victories, including a 40-21 triumph over Ireland which was their most complete display.<\/p>\n

Considering the group has only been together a few weeks, a number of areas were impressive, particularly the attack which sparkled throughout the Nations Championship.<\/p>\n

Defensive worries<\/p>\n

However, there are elements of their game which need to be improved, with the defence something that was highlighted on Sport Nation\u2019s The Rugby Run.<\/p>\n

It did get better as the July series went on and Howarth believes that the All Blacks<\/a> rearguard will continue to get better ahead of the Test series in South Africa.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s three games in, I think the attack is improving. There were a couple of pretty soft tries and I think that can be easily fixed in terms of around that area of tightening up a bit more, there seemed to be a few holes and I guess that\u2019s a connection thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only the third Test these guys have played together, so you would expect a few minor bumps, but I think if you get the structure right and you tighten up a bit more, particularly with the South Africans because they\u2019re big boys.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe alternative to that is don\u2019t be bloody five metres from your own line, try and play the game a bit further out from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion: Why Springboks, All Blacks and France have stopped picking positions as England remain stuck in the supermarket aisle<\/a><\/p>\n

The previous All Blacks regime was criticised for an apparent conservative approach, but Rennie\u2019s<\/a> side have been more willing to move the ball from deeper.<\/p>\n

They have also played with variety, something which will be vital against the Springboks, who will be happy if New Zealand go too direct, especially when entering the South African 22.<\/p>\n

All Blacks\u2019 attacking options<\/p>\n

\u201cThe points we scored in those three games weren\u2019t low points, so we can score. Everyone gets goal-line fever and white-line fever around that area, but a really pleasing thing for me was we had active runners, the ball carrier had options,\u201d Howarth added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland under Joe Schmidt were fantastic at that, and again they were very good last weekend, but so were we. That ball carrier now realises he probably had four options: him going, one guy on the inside, one guy on the outside and one guy behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure there\u2019s going to be times when you\u2019re 10 metres out where Jordie\u2019s going to go, \u2018stuff this, give me the ball\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see them getting towards that because if you\u2019re going to try and bash down the Boks\u2019 door, you\u2019re not going to win the game so you\u2019re going to have to come up with alternatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to have to come up with 10 metres out, five metres out; sometimes you\u2019re not going to win that battle against those big bodies, so move them around. It\u2019s positive as hell because I want to see what\u2019s next in this tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Ex-All Black picks out his Nations Championship stars as South African \u2018gazelle\u2019 praised while surprise New Zealand selection \u2018rises to the challenge\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Black Shane Howarth expects the defensive side of their game to be tidied up when they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1463,1464,111,43,139,69,1466,213],"class_list":["post-546061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-south-africa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546061","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=546061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}