A former All Black believes that Scott Robertson does not need to copy the Springboks’ Bomb Squad tactics to be successful.
Murray Mexted says that New Zealand is ‘totally different’ to South Africa and feels as though Robertson made changes for the sake of making changes in several Tests in 2025.
That includes the meeting between the two nations in Wellington as the Boks rallied in the second half to hand the All Blacks a record defeat in Aotearoa.
All Blacks are trialling players at international level
The ex-loose forward has hit out at the number of players Robertson deployed in 2025, slamming the fact that the team selections were not consistent throughout the year.
“Are we selecting or are we still trialling players? I’d like to see a more stable selection process. There are a lot of guys who seem to be given matches,” Mexted explained on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin.
“Strength and conditioning coaches have a lot to answer to in my mind because there seems to be a bit of a pattern that if you played 45 minutes of a game, you know, it’s time to move on to a replacement. It just seems to be a pattern.”
Springboks boss Erasmus regularly rotated his team throughout the year, making use of 49 players in total. While he was successful in doing so and made good use of the replacement bench – as did England – Mexted does not want Robertson to follow suit.
He believes that the tactic is more of a psychological ploy rather than a tactical one.
“I know that Rassie Erasmus has used that pattern for psychological warfare by bringing on eight players in one hit or something ridiculous like that – the Bomb Squad, bringing on five new forwards, and they’re all about the same size and of the same ability is a psychological exercise, isn’t it? But what I see is players being replaced that shouldn’t be replaced,” he explained.
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“[All Blacks] players who are really performing well and all of a sudden are off because they feel like they have to give someone else a game. And I think that’s flaunting with our reputation and our record. And I’d like to see our credibility in the world game restored, where we quieten down the media every time we play because they love to bash the guys at the top.
“That winning mantra is a psychological thing that you have, and I think there’s too much focus on fitness and conditioning than there is on mental strength. I think that’s a major part of success, and particularly consistent performance.”
Murray Mexted: All Blacks have been ‘buggering around’ for two years and it’s ‘tarnished our image’
Springboks are different
He added to his notion that some players are being trialled at Test level: “So that’s really what I’d like to see: a greater focus on that, on consistent performance and consistent selection and selecting players that deserve to be selected.
“Not a we’ll give you a game because you’re not going to be here next year. You’re going off to play pro rugby. So, we’ll give you the final game of the All Black tour against Wales, who scored four tries against New Zealand – that was disappointing.”
He continued: “You’ve got to manoeuvre within your own environment. Now the environment in South Africa and the requirements of creating a team environment in South Africa are totally different to what we’re doing in New Zealand.
“That’s one thing that I question when I read some journalists’ comments about this team always changing seven players in a game and all this sort of stuff. Well, we’re not all the same. We’re all different. We have different worlds. There’s a different way of achieving what Rassie has achieved than what we need to achieve.
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“We’ve got a small number of players in New Zealand, and they need to be playing at the highest level that they possibly can play, so we can sort out the men from the boys, pick a team and then hopefully perform as a team unit.
“It’s a totally different thing when you’ve got more players playing overseas than you have in your own country; that’s what South Africa’s got. They have a totally different system and a totally different way of selecting a team. He’s growing players overseas and at home.
“The most important thing for New Zealand is to retain the level of the NPC and Super Rugby.”