{"id":593076,"date":"2026-09-07T17:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/593076\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T17:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:10:08","slug":"neil-barnes-identifies-the-key-area-all-blacks-must-improve-in-against-dominant-boks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/593076\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Barnes identifies the key area All Blacks must improve in against ‘dominant’ Boks"},"content":{"rendered":"

All Blacks senior assistant coach Neil Barnes has urged his players to \u201cbe better\u201d and called for improvement in a key area when they face the Springboks<\/a> in Saturday\u2019s Test in Baltimore.<\/p>\n

South Africa have their tails up after taking a 2-1 lead in the four-Test Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry series courtesy of a 29-24 triumph over New Zealand in Soweto last Saturday.<\/p>\n

The All Blacks will be determined to bounce back as they bid to salvage a series draw but will do so without their talismanic captain Ardie Savea as well as two other first-choice players in Quinn Tupaea (centre) and Luke Jacobson (back-row).<\/p>\n

The aforementioned trio have been ruled out of the final Test due to injury. Savea (shoulder), Tupaea (knee) and Jacobson (elbow) returned to New Zealand along with six other players while head coach Dave Rennie, his backroom staff and a 36-man squad flew out to Baltimore.<\/p>\n

Barnes believes the gap is small between the All Blacks<\/a> and the world champion Boks<\/a> but admitted that his players will have to improve if they want to leave Baltimore with a victory.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re going to have to eat humble pie\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it is close, I think if you look at all the stats,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the end of the day we\u2019re on the wrong side of the scoreboard, so we\u2019re going to have to eat humble pie and be honest in our reviews and be solution-based, because we\u2019ve got to be better and be on the other side of that scoreboard, but to be fair, there\u2019s not a lot in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnes<\/a> highlighted the Springboks\u2019 excellent set-piece work as the area which the All Blacks have to improve in if they want to return to winning ways in Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry<\/a> series.<\/p>\n

He feels that due to the Boks\u2019 dominance in the scrums, lineouts and mauling, calls often go their way, and the All Blacks must find a way to stop that trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you can\u2019t hide from it; their set-piece is pretty damn dominant and they get a gravy train of penalties from it. I\u2019m not going to say they\u2019re all legit, but at the end of the day we\u2019ve got to change the perception for the officials as well so that we get a fair rub of the green,\u201d explained Barnes.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ve got to be solution-based here; they\u2019re good at what they do and we\u2019ve got to counter it.\u201d<\/p>\n

How New Zealand\u2019s media reacted to All Blacks\u2019 defeat to Springboks as departure of \u2018inspirational captain\u2019 and scrum woes identified as key reasons for loss<\/a><\/p>\n

Barnes revealed that the All Blacks are hurting following their latest defeat in Soweto, but insisted that they will keep on fighting.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019ve tried bloody hard to get the right result\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to beat ourselves up too much, but at the moment it stinks, we\u2019ve come in second to this crew and we\u2019ve tried bloody hard to get the right result for our country and it hurts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at our ball, there\u2019s hardly a penalty; the ball comes out and plays and that\u2019s the mindset over here. Set-pieces are there to create penalties to get yourself down the other end of the field,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I said, we\u2019ve got to get solutions-based on how to stop their set-piece. I don\u2019t think we did a too bad a job; we got a maul try against us at the end which hurt pretty bad, but the scrum penalties we\u2019ve got to find a way to stop it as well, so for both Jason (forwards coach Jason Ryan) and myself, we\u2019ve got work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He insisted, though, that there is no need for the All Blacks to change their game plan, as he believes they have a winning strategy if they can improve on their execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing you want to do is reinvent the wheel,\u201d added Barnes.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously you make alterations to your game plan all the time to try and stay ahead of your opposition, but at the end of the day we turned over too much ball, made mistakes at the wrong time and you pay for it against the best teams in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: All Blacks: Nine players to return to New Zealand ahead of final Greatest Rivalry series clash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Blacks senior assistant coach Neil Barnes has urged his players to \u201cbe better\u201d and called for improvement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1463,1464,111,43,139,69,6327,213],"class_list":["post-593076","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-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593076","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=593076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}