Tonight's victor could take a massive advantage into the Rugby World Cup
The All Blacks and the Springboks will play each other twice – maybe even three times – in 2019, and each match between the sides will increase in importance.
After disposing of Argentina and Australia, the two South Hemisphere sides will meet in Wellington tonight in a game which will likely decide 2019’s abridged Rugby Championship.
On the 21st of September, the rivals will square off again in their first match of the World Cup. Depending on how things go, New Zealand and South Africa could then meet in the tournament final, six weeks later.
Steve Hansen has understandably said that the importance of each result grows this year until New Zealand arrive at the World Cup. Whilst it would be nice to secure the Rugby Championship this weekend, there are still three matches to go before the World Cup kicks off.
Banking the Bledisloe Cup and the Rugby Championship will be of little consolation if New Zealand do not return from the World Cup with the trophy in hand, which is why every match is effectively a warm-up for the next. Until the World Cup knockouts arrive, of course.
Winning the World Cup will always be the primary goal for the All Blacks – but the path to victory can be significantly altered depending on how results go during the pool stages of the tournament.
Avoiding Ireland at World Cup could be key
The winners of Pool B play the runners up of Pool A, whilst the winners of Pool A play the runners up of Pool B. Ireland, Scotland, Samoa and Japan will all be eying up a qualifying position from Pool A, but if everything goes as should be expected, then Ireland will come out as top seeds with Scotland trailing not far behind.
Whilst neither of those teams are easy beats, only Ireland have tasted success against the All Blacks. Scotland came close in the two sides’ encounter at the end of 2018, almost scoring on the stroke of halftime, but Ireland have won two of their three most recent clashes.
Purely from an outcome-based approach, the All Blacks will be keen to avoid Ireland at the quarter-finals stage (even though Ireland have never progressed past the quarter-finals) so will be aiming to top their pool.
That being said, a second-place finish wouldn’t be the end of the world. Argentina finished second to New Zealand in their pool at 2015 World Cup and still made it to the semi-finals. In 2011, New Zealand were the only pool winner to progress to the semi-finals, while finalists France started out in the same pool as the All Blacks, who won the tournament. 2007’s semi-finals included two pool champions and two pool runner-ups.
Still, we are yet to see a world champion emerge who has dropped a match during the tournament – so both New Zealand and South Africa will be pushing hard come the World Cup pool stages.
Which brings us to this weekend’s match.
Close to full strength line-up – but not quite
Tonight we get to see a vastly changed team from the one that Steve Hansen rolled out against the Pumas. Brodie Retallick, Ben Smith and Beauden Barrett are the only players retained in the starting XV from last weekend’s match. First-choice players Joe Moody, Owen Franks, Sam Whitelock, Kieran Read, Sonny Bill Williams and Rieko Ioane have slotted back into the side whilst Codie Taylor, TJ Perenara and Jack Goodhue are all fairly like-for-like replacements for the men whose spots they’ve taken.
Whether the selectors targeted this game as an opportunity to roll out what would be close to their top side is uncertain. Perhaps that’s simply the way the cards have fallen due to the forced absence of the Crusaders players from last weekend’s fixture.
The All Blacks squad will be trimmed down to 34 players for the Bledisloe series, which means that a number of men are playing for spots this weekend – while others probably already had their last chance in Argentina. Certain All Blacks will be playing for a place in the squad, which will make for an absolutely thrilling match.
Lack of dominance makes this one a must-win
Perhaps Steve Hansen doesn’t see this match as a must-win, but a certain amount of confidence will be gained for the World Cup re-match by whichever team emerges victorious tonight.
New Zealand hasn’t always performed so well in the build up to World Cups. In 2015, the Wallabies tipped over the All Blacks 27-19 in Sydney. Similarly, the All Blacks fell to both the Springboks and the Wallabies away from home in 2011.
The scenarios in those two seasons were a little bit different, however. The All Blacks have had a huge stranglehold on the Wallabies for a number of years now. It’s been 17 years since the Wallabies last held the Bledisloe Cup, which means that Australia haven’t come out of year with a positive win ratio over New Zealand in the same period of time. Slipping up to the Wallabies in 2015, therefore, was an anomaly. The All Blacks also had the opportunity to avenge that loss just a week later, which they duly did, accounting for the Wallabies 41-13.
Similarly, in 2011 the losses to South Africa and Australia didn’t hit quite as hard because those fixtures had both been away from home. The All Blacks didn’t send their full-strength side to Port Elizabeth so the 18-5 loss wasn’t a horrible outcome (especially as the All Blacks thrashed the Springboks 40-7 in the earlier fixture). The loss to Australia was a bit more of kick in the teeth, but the All Black’s persistent dominance over the Wallabies meant it wasn’t the end of the world.
In 2019, however, things have changed. The All Blacks and the Springboks have fought out three very close matches in the last three encounters. In the second fixture of 2017, New Zealand triumphed by just one point in Cape Town. Last year, the away teams emerged victorious in both games, with three-point margins in both encounters. New Zealand have had no dominance over South Africa in the last few meetings, which means that tonight’s match counts for everything.
All on the line in Wellington tonight
If the Springboks lose by a close margin, it probably won’t significantly harm their World Cup preparations. After all, the match is being played in New Zealand. If the Springboks do somehow triumph, however, then they will take a massive mental advantage into the World Cup, knowing that they’ve had the rub over New Zealand in the last two years – even away from home.
Losing against the Springboks won’t be the end of the world for New Zealand; there are plenty of more important fish to fry this year. The winner of tonight’s game, however, will take an advantage into the World Cup – even if it is a small one. Steve Hansen has resisted in putting out a full-strength team – though it’s not far off it – only time will tell whether the right decision has been made.
Comments on RugbyPass
‘Salads don’t win scrums’ 😂 I love that.
18 Go to commentsCan’t wait for the article that talks about misogyny in Ireland. Somehow.
11 Go to commentsI would like to see a rule change, when the attacking team is held up over the try line, by allowing the defensive team to restart a goal line drop out releases the pressure for the defensive team, but what if the attacking team had to restart a tap 5m out from the defensive team it gives the attacking team to apply more pressure, there are endless options for the attacking side and it will keep the fans in suspence.
2 Go to commentsLess modern South African males predictably triggered.
11 Go to commentsMy heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
81 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
2 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
81 Go to commentsNot a squeek out of Leinster for weeks about this match. So quiet. The first team have been quitely building for this encounter under Nienaber’s direction. All fresh, all highly motivated. They are expecting a season’s best performance from Northhampton. They will match that. They will be fresher and apparently they will have 80,000 out of the 83,000 shouting for them. I do expect Northhampton to turn up big time. Not to be missed. On a tangent it is evident how the loss of a few Premiership teams has in some respect helped other Premiership teams and England. More quality over less teams makes the teams better, which has a knock on effect on England. Not the only factor contributing to England’s rise but one of them.
5 Go to comments