Colin Meads: Take a break and pay a price

The All Blacks proved one theory I live by - you cannot have four weeks off and come out and play test rugby.

It took a resurgent South African side to teach us that lesson in Cape Town. You can have a week off, maybe two, and that's enough. You can train with all these experts but you can't simulate a game.

People say the All Blacks were rusty, they were just soft... because they hadn't played.

If they had more than a fortnight off after last night's test in Australia, they should all play NPC, every man and his dog.

Even with a free weekend, I'd be tempted to send a lot of the squad back to play NPC. It's a good measure to see where they are competitively. I'd still like to see the All Blacks play a bit of club football because there's always a club player who wants to have you on.

Speaking of players having you on, the 2005 Springboks remind me of the South African teams I played against.

They're aggressive, they play for keeps and they don't stand any nonsense. In this instance, their backs don't look the greatest in the world - but they're hard to score against and that is a traditional Springbok trait.

Three or four years ago South Africa were saying they were going to end up like Scotland.

The Springboks' turnaround is good for world rugby but it's also a lesson for us - you underestimate South Africa at your peril.

The stand-out player was lock Victor Matfield. His tackle that dazed Byron Kelleher was just one of those things that are marginal in the game of rugby. He's a hard man and we've got to stand up to him.

I also don't believe the allegation that Matfield was wearing a metal plate in his arm guard. I wore a solid leather one in South Africa when my arm was broken on the 1970 All Black tour. The last thing I wanted to do was swing it at someone.

I played four or five matches like that and it was still broken when I got home.

Of course, that wouldn't happen today. ACC wouldn't allow you to play.

This Tri Nations is also a wake-up call for the Northern Hemisphere - they rubbish the Tri Nations, they rubbish the Super 12 and maybe they do it at their peril.

It's told us the Lions weren't as good a side as we might have thought - as we struggled against South Africa in a lot of the parts of the game we dominated against the Lions.

I think at halftime we thought that we had the measure of the South Africans. But they're a smarter side than we thought they were - they targeted Daniel Carter and Richie McCaw and we didn't have too many answers.

We lacked a bit of urgency. Others should have stepped up and taken a bit of the load and they didn't. Right to the end of the game, McCaw was getting hammered.

While Collins had a pretty good game, Rodney So'oialo hasn't looked as good this year as last year and might've had his worst game as an All Black against the Boks.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY