{"id":595612,"date":"2026-09-10T02:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T02:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/595612\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T02:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T02:48:09","slug":"all-blacks-v-springboks-jordie-barrett-says-side-not-far-away-after-back-to-back-defeats-to-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/595612\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks v Springboks: Jordie Barrett says side \u2018not far away\u2019 after back-to-back defeats to South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coach Dave Rennie will name his All Blacks squad tomorrow with Barrett in the running as captain<\/a>, with the likes of Codie Taylor and Patrick Tuipulotu. <\/p>\n

Asked if he had spent any time considering whether or not the Baltimore test doesn\u2019t count to the series because it was being played outside South Africa, Barrett said he believed that a drawn series is still alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly not. Like this Greatest Rivalry [series] was always a four-game series. There was a lot been talk about trying to win a test series in South Africa and that\u2019s what we wanted to do … this rivalry series is a four-game series and we\u2019ve got an opportunity to go two-all against a team who\u2019s been well established back-to-back world champions. We\u2019ve only been together for a little while and we\u2019ve got a chance to go two-all against them and that\u2019s the opportunity that excites us for this weekend.\u201d <\/p>\n

Barrett, who has started every test for the All Blacks under Rennie, said the side were heading in the right direction under the new coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve learned a lot about ourselves in the past month and you do learn a lot about yourself against the best team in the world and on the road. I\u2019m confident we\u2019re heading in the right direction, that\u2019s where we want to go and if we want to go to that place we\u2019re probably going to end up playing the South Africans in a quarter-final in a Rugby World Cup<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not overly pleased to be down 2-1 in the series, but look, we haven\u2019t lost all hope in this group and there\u2019s a lot of positives to come out of our last three games against the Boks. We\u2019re not far away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was it 33-16 in that first test at Ellis Park<\/a> and we felt like South Africa probably had the wood over us for about 55 minutes. Couple of moments they get a yellow card and we win by two or three tries and we walk away from that test match all happy and we probably felt like we played better in game two and lost by seven points. And that\u2019s just the way test matches are working at the moment and unfortunately we were on the wrong side of it again in game three but there\u2019s an opportunity for us to level the series two-all this week in the States. So it\u2019s a completely different kettle of fish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrett added that the South Africa leg was \u201cthe most memorable and enjoyable tests you\u2019ll play as an All Black\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just the country in general and their history and the relationship with the All Blacks and there\u2019s certainly a great rivalry also between the two countries and enough flying at the moment in terms of their rugby. They\u2019re back-to-back world champions. They\u2019re a country that probably haven\u2019t been as united in the past but it seems like rugby is bringing everyone together at the moment and they\u2019re certainly riding a high. It\u2019s tough playing in their conditions but it\u2019s also the most memorable and enjoyable tests you\u2019ll play as an All Black as well. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs hard as the last three weeks have been for me, I\u2019ve absolutely loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron McMillan<\/a> has been a sports journalist since 2003 and is NZME\u2019s Deputy Head of Sport. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coach Dave Rennie will name his All Blacks squad tomorrow with Barrett in the running as captain, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[190,74,5263,4995,1863,59740,45091,20437,8136,293483,4731,10803,528,15312,69277,685,97993,111,139,5006,69,13084,26534,53902,312,1963,6102,1240,213,8137,10809,765,8229,61,9347,8982,6444,102],"class_list":["post-595612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-africa","tag-after","tag-all","tag-away","tag-back","tag-backtoback","tag-baltimore","tag-barrett","tag-blacks","tag-bookend","tag-days","tag-defeats","tag-far","tag-greatest","tag-jordie","tag-last","tag-mode","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-prepare","tag-rivalry","tag-rugbys","tag-says","tag-series","tag-side","tag-south","tag-sports","tag-springboks","tag-sunday","tag-test","tag-they","tag-to","tag-veteran","tag-victory","tag-whirlwind","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595612","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=595612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}