{"id":562861,"date":"2026-08-08T14:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T14:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/562861\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T14:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T14:08:20","slug":"all-blacks-can-forget-about-being-vaguely-competitive-against-springboks-as-new-zealand-media-slam-performance-versus-stormers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/562861\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks can forget about being ‘vaguely competitive’ against Springboks as New Zealand media slam performance versus Stormers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Planet Rugby takes a look at how the media reacted to the All Blacks\u2019 38-21 victory over the Stormers<\/a> in their opening Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry tour match.<\/p>\n

Dave Rennie\u2019s side were made to work hard for their victory, heading into half-time with a 14-7 lead, with three tries in 10 minutes in the second quarter seeing them finally put the game to bed.<\/p>\n

The All Blacks<\/a> were +35-point victors in the eyes of the bookies before the match, but they failed to live up to that billing and were largely criticised in the aftermath from media back at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

Damning review of the All Blacks\u2019 victory<\/p>\n

NZ Herald writer Gregor Paul was damning in his review of the team\u2019s performance as he felt Rennie\u2019s men managed to identify the threats that the Stormers<\/a> were going to pose but failed to deal with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe All Blacks pulled off the improbable feat in Cape Town of managing to secure a victory in which they filled the bingo card of all the things that teams can\u2019t afford to get wrong in South Africa,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir scrum was a mess, they gave\u2026 away needless penalties, they couldn\u2019t catch high balls, and they struggled to contain the driving maul.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were also shown three yellow cards and if they play like that against a stronger opponent \u2013 a team that hasn\u2019t been asked to come out of their off-season six weeks into it and cobble together a performance \u2013 then they will be crushed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes that if the All Blacks produce a similar performance against Rassie Erasmus\u2019 charges in the Test series<\/a>, they can forget about winning the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr to be more specific \u2013 if they play like that against the Springboks, they can forget about winning the series,\u201d Paul continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can forget about being even vaguely competitive because there are non-negotiables in South Africa and chief among them is keeping 15 players on the field, dealing with the assault and not letting the referee believe that there is a desire to be technically uncooperative at the scrum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat the All Blacks were able to score poorly in every key metric that mattered and\u00a0yet still win, was down to a late revival in which they were able to finally string together a few more accurate and direct passages against a Stormers team that was running out of puff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stormers v All Blacks: Five takeaways as host \u2018expose\u2019 clear flaws in Dave Rennie\u2019s team\u2019s game with Beauden Barrett failing to live up to his pedigree<\/a><\/p>\n

Referee slammed<\/p>\n

Richard Knowler of stuff.co.nz believes that the Sharks and their head coach JP Pietersen will be licking their lips ahead of their clash in Durban on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t be news to Rennie that the Sharks, having watched the All Blacks struggle to subdue the understrength Stormers before rattling on four late tries on Saturday morning (NZT), will aim to twist the dagger in what they perceive to be the tourists\u2019 soft underbelly when they meet in Durban on Wednesday,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Knowler also took aim at the match officials, adding: \u201cTo make matters worse, referee Karl Dickson reached for his whistle so often during the match that he resembled a kid sucking on their favourite lollypop at DHL Stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n

SuperSport\u2019s Gavin Rich was another who felt that the final scoreline flattered the All Blacks and hailed the Stormers for their competitiveness, particularly considering that their squad hadn\u2019t played since the United Rugby Championship semi-final defeat to Leinster and are in the midst of their pre-season.<\/p>\n

\u201cA late flurry of scoring against a tiring DHL Stormers team saved the touring All Blacks from the potential embarrassment of an opening-game defeat as they got their Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry tour off to a winning 38-21 start at the DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Friday night,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe final score slightly flattered a New Zealand team that was made to sweat by a passionate Stormers team that was playing out of season, hence the almost inevitable fade right at the end, and also without 10 Springboks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the famous victory to match that of the historic 12-11 win scored against the All Blacks at Newlands in 1976 that was hoped for from the hosts, but the Stormers were more than competitive and in the first 68 minutes, they exposed some serious flaws in the basics of the All Black game.\u201d<\/p>\n

All Blacks player ratings: Beauden Barrett \u2018fails his audition\u2019 along with several others but returning forward \u2018quite remarkable\u2019 after injury woes<\/a><\/p>\n

More questions than answers<\/p>\n

He believes that the result leaves Rennie with more questions than answers heading into the remainder of the tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow good are the All Black attackers when faced with a defence that boasts line speed and is not passive? How do they deal with the contestable kicking game? How good is their scrumming? Has it improved? And how well do they defend an opposition maul? None of those questions were answered with complete assurance on a night where the All Blacks were held to 14-all up until there were 12 minutes to go.\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

Staying in South Africa and IOL Sport\u2019s John Goliath rued the All Blacks\u2019 failure to compete at scrum time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe All Blacks will need to sort out their scrum before the first Test at Ellis Park if they are to have any chance of competing against the Springboks. The Stormers\u2019 front row, especially young loosehead Vernon Matongo, had them on toast in the first half,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n

Justin Marshall: All Blacks \u2018fluctuations\u2019 not \u2018rocket science\u2019 as there\u2019s a lack of \u2018trust\u2019 in one area<\/a><\/p>\n

Dave Rennie would have been left a frustrated figure<\/p>\n

Aaron Goile of The Post said that the All Blacks\u2019 performance in Cape Town won\u2019t worry the Springboks in the slightest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, Rassie Erasmus and his two-time world champion Springboks will hardly be quaking in their boots after watching that first-up display from the men in black, 15 days out from the first test at Johannesburg\u2019s Ellis Park,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Blacks coach Dave Rennie would have been left a frustrated figure after his outfit made rather hard work of what appeared a straightforward task against a local side without their Springboks reps and who are in their pre-season phase ahead of the United Rugby Championship, which they were semifinalists in last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, this was a mix-and-match lineup for the tourists, themselves, and a lack of cohesion was not much of a surprise, but there were plenty of unforced mistakes, and a 16-11 penalty count against them, including three yellow cards, which helped stunt the cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Stormers v All Blacks: Winners and losers as Springbok hero \u2018puts injury hell behind him\u2019 while Dave Rennie left \u2018frustrated\u2019 by key area<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Planet Rugby takes a look at how the media reacted to the All Blacks\u2019 38-21 victory over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1463,111,43,139,69,6327],"class_list":["post-562861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-home-page","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562861","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=562861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}