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The art of execution according to Quinn Tupaea
reporting from Cape Town
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Of all the rugby clichés, one has been offered up to grieving All Blacks fans the most in the wake of recent losses. Successive coaches have invoked the sentiment, unable to escape its relevance, and used it to cast the gap between success and failure as simple yet abstract.
“We created plenty of opportunities, we just couldn’t quite execute them.”
As you read the words, you can no doubt picture a handful of people with a white fern on their chest speaking them. And while this new All Blacks group had managed to sing to a different tune thanks to eight straight wins to begin the 2026 season, the phrase inevitably reared its head in the wake of the weekend’s loss to the Springboks in Cape Town.
“We gave ourselves a few chances, but we felt we left a few points out there,” said All Blacks assistant coach Tamati Ellison after Tuesday’s training run in Cape Town.
The repetition is a nod to the fact that no team, coach or player can escape the challenges of Test rugby. But a cliché can only keep you afloat so long before you have to dive in the deep end and explore the Xs and Os.
“It’s belief and skill set,” says Quinn Tupaea, speaking to RugbyPass at the All Blacks’ Cape Town hotel and offering a well-considered perspective on the matter.
“We speak about being in every moment, so if you lose a moment, you’ve got to flush it pretty quickly and focus on your next job.
“We have a great skills coach here in Euan (Mackintosh), and we do a lot of stuff behind the scenes around our shape and guys being in the right spots, so it’s a lot down to that.
“But I guess it’s just being mentally locked into the moment, and executing your role as best you can for the team.”
Presence of mind is a trait admired by plenty, meaningfully achieved by few. Athletes are in the minority with professional guidance, working towards it on a daily basis, and with influential mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka now back in the environment, the All Blacks feel they are making strides.
Enoka heads a mental-skills leadership group within the team, providing players with tools and delivering the messages he sees as most valuable for the challenge at hand.
“The higher you go up, the more mental skills come into it; the pressure moments, staying where your feet are, all that sort of stuff,” Tupaea says. “It’s a massive part of international footy, and if you can get that right, it definitely helps out on the paddock.
“It’s cool how you can put something like mental skills into practice during the week and then see it come out on the weekend. That end of the first half (at Ellis Park), we were under a lot of pressure. Just how the boys reacted to it, and how calm our leaders stayed, it’s pretty impressive.
“With the stadiums here and the noise, even with big screens, you can get taken away quite easily. When you’re in the huddle, you try to connect with eyes and touch, so when leaders are giving messages, you know where you’re needed, and you’re connected on the next play.
“It’s pretty easy to get taken away from that moment, but eyes and feel can connect you well.”
After a first-up win in the series, Tupaea says the All Blacks stayed “grounded”, knowing “it’s only one win; we need a lot more to get a series win over here, and that’s the ultimate goal.”
Despite falling to a 26-33 defeat in game two, the picture hasn’t changed. Execution still demands both skill set and belief; the latter becoming most dangerous when it transforms into knowledge, and Tupaea says the All Blacks are entering that territory.
“Belief is massive. But we’ve also got a lot of evidence from our game; we can see our game working,” he insisted. “So that also grows the belief. It’s all about getting our week right: The best team in the world are the Springboks, so you have to be at your best every week.”
As someone who chooses “physical, focused, and effort” as the three words to describe his mindset as an athlete, Tupaea, 27, clearly has a deep appreciation for the role attitude plays in the game of rugby. Any camera that picks Tupaea up during the game is likely to find him on his toes and alert, even during stoppages.
“It’s probably a second-nature thing. If you look over to the other team and you see them slouched over, or hands on knees or whatever, you know you’ve got that mental edge on them. So, you want to show positive body language.
“A connected group is something we strive for, so in connected huddles, connecting with your eyes, body language, cues like that just to let each other know you’re right on.”
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