All Blacks dominated the Wallabies at Eden Park, Warriors claimed a third-straight victory, another top ten finish for Lydia Ko plus more. Video / NZ Herald
OPINION:
There is one salient fact that needs to be better appreciated before the All Blacks depart for Australia at the end of this week for what may be a three-month, 10-test offshore tour.
Which is that the Springboks are not the iceberg they should necessarily see as the onemost likely to rip a whole in their hull.
The Boks will be extraordinarily tough to beat. No one should be under illusions about that. South Africa have reverted to playing not so much a low-risk game, but zero risk and for all the subjective assessments about its entertainment value, no one disputes its effectiveness.
It won South Africa a World Cup in 2019 and has netted them a Lions series this year.
What it has also done is deepen a perception of the Boks being the ultimate challenge in the global game. The rugby-following world now sees the Boks as the team with all the answers. The team whose lack of creative ambition shouldn't mask their ability to win tests.
The South Africans are all about substance, aware that style only warms the hearts of rugby romantics and doesn't always deliver on the sole objective of winning.
All Blacks perform the haka during the national anthem during the 2nd 2021 Bledisloe Cup Test rugby match between the All Blacks and Australia. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Their simplistic approach contains a deeper recognition that if the beast is cast in the starring role there is little to no screen time for beauty.
The All Blacks are hailed as the one team in rugby playing a beautiful game and what has built in recent weeks is a narrative that New Zealand, for all their sleight of hand and micro skill brilliance, have historically been unduly troubled by the bash and smash of South Africa.
The sense is building that the two tests this year between New Zealand and South Africa sit as some kind of watershed moment to determine whether the All Blacks are smart enough and resourceful enough to produce a gameplan that can flourish in the face of such oppressive defence and conservatism.
The onus is being put on the All Blacks to prove, once and for all, whether their high-speed, high skill, multi-faceted football can deliver victories against all and not just most of the world's best teams.
Rugby needs a storyline at the moment on which the drama and intrigue can be built, but the problem with this heightened anticipation is that the facts don't support the perception the way everyone thinks they do.
Statistically, there is no compulsion to fear the Boks and believe that the All Blacks have struggled against their straight-running, aerial bombardment.
Since 2012, the All Blacks have played the Boks 16 times and won 13 of those, with a draw in 2019 and two defeats. In the last decade, the All Blacks have amassed a win ratio of 81 per cent against the Springboks.
Bledisloe Cup Champions. www.photosport.nz
In the same period, their win ratio against the Wallabies is 78 per cent. More telling, however, is the way the numbers puncture this idea of the Boks being impregnable – that their defence is a sort of Alcatraz set-up from which the All Blacks can't escape.
Since 2016, the All Blacks have scored an average of 35.5 points in their eight tests against the Boks and an average of 4.9 tries per game.
This is a more prolific rate than which they have scored against the Wallabies – with the numbers showing they have averaged 36 points and 4.8 tries against Australia in the same period.
The Boks have not been the bogeyman for the All Blacks in the last decade. What they have struggled most with in the last decade, are games against the Wallabies when the Bledisloe has already been won.
There have been seven Bledisloe tests in the last nine years when the trophy has not been up for grabs and the All Blacks have won four, drawn once and lost twice.
One of those victories – in 2014 – came down to a conversion after the final whistle while another, in 2016, was swung back towards the All Blacks after a poor refereeing decision denied the Wallabies a legitimate try when they were building momentum.
So the real ice-berg the All Blacks face in the next month or so, is the one directly ahead of them – the third Bledisloe encounter in Perth on August 28.
The All Blacks lost the fourth Bledisloe last year in Brisbane after wrapping up the series the week before in Sydney and that defeat bumped them out of rhythm entirely.
They can't afford a similar mid-season derailment this year and so victory in Perth is imperative to enable them to consolidate the outstanding performance in Bledisloe Two and to generate the confidence and momentum that will be needed to face the Pumas and Boks four times in four weeks.
