Former All Blacks discuss possible changes for Springboks Test

With the Rugby Championship well and truely underway, all four teams have managed to get one win from their opening two games in the 2025 competition.

The All Blacks still sit top of the table after two matches, after they scraped a bonus point against Argentina in Buenos Aires.

The next match for the All Blacks, is the biggest and most anticipated match in 2025, when the Springboks come to New Zealand to try and end the All Blacks’ long-lasting winning record at Eden Park.

All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson will have his work cut out for him in the meantime, as he will need to get his team to be better if they want to extend the winning run at Eden Park.

Robertson will be without some key names for the matchup against the back-to-back World Cup winners, especially at the halfback position where Cortez Ratima went down against Argentina with a suspected sternum injury.

Four former All Blacks have discussed what these injuries could mean for the All Blacks going forward, as they look ahead to the Springboks Test.

23-Test former All Black first-five Stephen Donald believes Robertson needs to have a look at the forward pack, to make sure the All Blacks have their combinations right.

“Well the first thing when you’re talking about the selections is, is that the pack that you want? When you think about Argentina this week, they got a whole lot quicker ball and I didn’t see the same fight at the breakdown,” Donald said on the Sky Sport panel after the Test match.

“Now, was it a collective thing, or was it the fact that we didn’t have a genuine Du’Plessis and Ardie working together?

“Obviously we went Parker, Tupou Vaa’i two big men and Ardie at seven, as far as defensively, Argentina got all that go forward and ball on their terms so that would be sort of the questions that you’d be asking around selections.”

Team Form

Last 5 Games

26 - 52

33 - 19

17 - 25

13 - 26

14 - 28

0 - 73

13 - 24

14 - 32

17 - 32

61 - 7

4

Wins

5

1

Streak

5

21

Tries Scored

21

47

Points Difference

171

4/5

First Try

3/5

3/5

First Points

3/5

4/5

Race To 10 Points

3/5

Former All Black halfback Justin Marshall isn’t convinced that Robertson has got the right balance at lock, and in the loose forwards.

“I’m not necessarily convinced that the locking combination has got us functioning as well as what we could have.

“I can’t say that Fabian Holland or Scott Barrett are playing poorly, but I don’t know if we’re getting the best out of the guy who was in the best form of his career in Tupou Vaa’i on the side of the scrum.

“So it’s like, do we have to shift that and think about one of those other guys coming off the bench, and that’s obviously not going to be the captain.

“And the back row, what does that look like, I agree with you it still hasn’t got us convinced that we’ve got the right combination, the right trio.”

Former All Black Jeff Wilson asks Angus Ta’avao whether he thinks Tamaiti Williams can go straight back into the starting lineup for the Test match against the Springboks on September 6, after only playing 38 minutes of rugby for the All Blacks in 2025.

“I think they were pretty confident on getting him on quite early, 42 minutes in and you could sort of tell as the game was going, and the speed of being on defence a lot, he did look a bit gassed, but I still thought, he fought and he had intent,” Ta’avao said.