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The Chiefs' players are under the microscope for the All Blacks
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After losing captain Ardie Savea, centre Quinn Tupaea and openside Luke Jacobson to injury after the third Test, changes were expected for the fourth Test.
While Savea is irreplaceable as a one-of-one player, it wasn’t expected that the All Blacks would drop off so much in the final Test with the changes.
There seems to be no progress with the high-ball issues, while an inability to recover from one error persists, with a cascade of errors contributing to massive momentum swings.
The All Blacks started poorly once again despite having the kickoff. They conceded a penalty for being offside after one phase, which invited the Boks all the way downfield, and they quickly conceded three points.
After that shaky start, they started to get the better of the Boks, and the signs were promising.
They constructed the first try to Codie Taylor after a Damian McKenzie line break down the left side. The fullback decided to hold the ball instead of attempting to link with wide open Cam Roigard inside, opting to be patient, and Roigard provided a great cutout pass for Taylor to get into space on the next phase.
Up 7-3, the All Blacks had the momentum and earned another 22 entry. A smart long kick from Roigard from a midfield scrum pinned South Africa deep, and the clearing kick failed to make it out of the 22.
This was a pivotal moment. The All Blacks have struggled all series to strike back-to-back. When presented an opportunity to take command of the game by two plus scores, they routinely blew it. Not only that, they’d find a way to give away the lead at the opposite end.
On the first phase, Wallace Sititi crashed hard up the lineout seam down to just 10 metres out. The Boks were under pressure and the defensive line reeling. Pieter-steph du Toit was on the ground to the right of the ruck with no pillar defence set.
Roigard went left instead, ran a switch to Moorby, who then attacked the weaker side where Du Toit had regained his feet, but Moorby coughed up possession in the contact.
Opportunity wasted. Not only that, the Boks countered wide quickly, kicked through with a grubber and the All Blacks were caught outside their own 22. McKenzie, instead of clearing deep, attempted a cross-field kick that went through the hands of Anton Lienert-Brown into touch on the full.
In 60 seconds they lost total control of territory and possession. McKenzie’s all-or-nothing kick came up with nothing. It’s just awful Test rugby. There’s a time and place, and that isn’t it, when the team has just scrambled back 70 metres.
Their reward for failing to release pressure was 12 phases of Springbok power, which ended with a try to Damian de Allende. South Africa took the lead 10-7, and the All Blacks would not get it back.
Compounding bad moments is a habit of this All Black team. It’s not just Moorby’s costly turnover; it’s everything that happens afterwards. They can’t shake a bad moment and stay in the grind.
The next thing McKenzie did after that cross-field kick was cough up a kick return from the very next exit kick after De Allende’s try.
There is clearly a lot of good that comes with McKenzie, but he is playing his way out of the All Black team right now. On South Africa form, he would be dropped. Even when he does something good, like make a line break, he can’t seem to make the right decision or execute the next part. It’s never clinical. It’s never clean. It’s chaos and often costly. Even back to the Sharks warm-up game, one potential try was chalked off with McKenzie in charge of the finish and nearly a second.
The biggest play of the game came from a McKenzie line break, with McKenzie and Moorby standing around protesting instead of tackling Arendse after they coughed up the ball. They teach kids to always play to the whistle. Do these All Blacks have to be taught like children again?
Tana Umaga’s defence has to come under the microscope soon. It’s passive, the line moves disconnected, and they concede so much ground. The will to tackle hard and win collisions was not in this All Blacks team in Baltimore.
Umaga’s appointment came with optimism and fanfare, but the reality is he coached the worst defensive unit in Super Rugby Pacific. Their negative 291 points differential was a whopping 148 points more than the next worse, the Drua with -143. Even when they finished 7th in 2025, they finished with the second worst points differential.
To illustrate the defensive weakness, after Arendse fielded a long Mo’unga clearing kick near the sideline and found Willemse, the passive D just let them dictate terms.
Moorby backtracked away from the situation, playing passive while lock-turned-blindside Tupou Vaa’i missed the first up tackle. Willemse offloads back to Arendse, who cuts open the disjointed forwards for 50 metres. These players with time and space will kill you, and they did just that.
Mo’unga, who made the clearing kick, had to make the cover tackle. By the time they actually set a decent line, they were 10 metres from their own try line. It’s way too late. On this occasion they were spared when Du Toit was pinged for sealing off.
Tupou Vaa’i has regressed as a player on this tour, and the move to No.6 is part of it. Two years ago, he was the All Blacks’ best forward in South Africa and in the conversation for the world’s best lock. In Baltimore, he slipped five tackles, gave away costly penalties and was a net negative contribution for the team.
Every player goes through form dips, and it’s sad to see Vaa’i lose the competitive niggle and passion. The bottom line is he’s not a No.6.
Missed tackles are coming from scrum coverage, where he can’t cover a back because he doesn’t have the speed to close the space. The Willemse miss was from a scrum clearing kick chase line; the miss on scrumhalf Van den Berg came direct from a scrum, which cost a huge line break and led to the Du Toit try.
The All Blacks lost a possession on the right touchline with Vaa’i responsible. Vaa’i, after gifting the pass early to Will Jordan, overran him and was then unable to clean out effectively.
The counter-ruck was effective, and South Africa win the ball. It’s the same ruck that Roigard gets penalised for ripping the ball away from Du Toit from a side entry. At the end of the day, they should never have lost that ruck contest to begin with. The evidence is clear that Vaa’i can’t play No.6, particularly against the Springboks.
The Chiefs’ players are under the microscope more intently than any other All Black. Fairly or unfairly, no one can forget 60-5 whenever they play. It’s seared into the memory of everyone who watched.
A team that loses 60-5 is a team that gave up. That quit. Right now, the All Blacks are full of those players, so it’s difficult not to question the selections when you see them repeat the same behaviours that led to them getting hammered in the Super Rugby final.
To be fair, Quinn Tupaea has been the best 13, Luke Jacobson proved a lot of doubters wrong despite the odd piece of ill discipline, and Wallace Sititi stood up during the series, but the rest left a lot to be desired.
Please prove New Zealand wrong, as the South Africa tour showed many of the Chiefs players aren’t up to it.
