LONG READ Kennedy Tsimba: How the All Blacks turned 'danger to dominance' to sink South Africa

Kennedy Tsimba’s shift theory worked out far better for the All Blacks than it did the Springboks at Ellis Park on Saturday, and those shifts really mattered.

The first Test featured the lowest ball-in-play time of any international fixture in recent times [29 minutes and 34 seconds] and the same number of total rucks between both sides [138] the men in black were averaging alone at the recent Nations Championship.

The side which built the most rucks – South Africa with 80 – lost ball to pilfer at one in every 13 rucks they set, and there were 20 handling errors and 30 turnovers of possession overall. The game was largely scrappy and unstructured as a result, and the ability to adapt successfully to the chaos of possession shifts was at a premium.

Tsimba left readers with three questions at the end of the last article, and he has now addressed them in the aftermath of Johannesburg. They were as follows:

1. How do both teams respond to contestable kicks?
2. Who adapts fastest when the original structure breaks down?
3. How does each team manage the space behind the defensive line in the shift?

*

Who won the contestable kick battle?

“The Springboks won the contestable battle,11–6 on reclaims and receipts,” Tsimba says.

“However, one of the interesting observations is winning the contest doesn’t necessarily mean winning the shift that follows.

“At 35:42 on the clock, the Springboks regain a contestable kick, but the resulting play ends with a kick directly into touch. It provides an interesting distinction between winning the initial contest and capitalising on the subsequent shift.”

Tsimba’s observation winning the contest doesn’t mean winning the shift that follows was the key to unlocking the Springboks’ performance failure. The Bokke achieved several of their pre-match goals, such as winning penalties from scrum, winning the aerial battle and puncturing the New Zealand defence with power runs by the likes of outstanding number eight Jasper Wiese.

But when it came to exploiting the contest-win, and transitioning from winning the ball to using the ball, there was a mental stop, and the Springbok mindset froze, instead of flowing and expanding with the shift. Tsimba references a clip late in the first half, after Cheslin Kolbe reclaims a high kick on the edge of the New Zealand 22.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) August 24, 2026

If you freeze-frame as Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu receives the ball after Kolbe’s regather, there is a ‘full house’ available on attack including number six Paul de Villiers, 20 Andre Esterhuizen, 15 Damian Willemse and 12 Damian de Allende, with makeshift wing Jesse Kriel out beyond them on the left edge. New Zealand right wing Will Jordan is defending five metres inside the 15m line so this is a situation South Africa should be well able to exploit with ball in hand. Instead, the young Stormers tyro kicks the ball tamely cross-field, and straight into touch. Opportunity knocks, opportunity lost.

Who reacted and adapted first when the shift occurred and the structure fell away?

“47:22 on the clock: Fabian Holland’s kick block-down try,” Tsimba observes.

“This was a particularly good example of the behaviour I’m looking for within a shift. Holland recognised the change in the situation, reacted and executed faster than the players around him, with his charge-down ultimately producing a game-changing try.

“For me, the important part isn’t simply the charge-down. It is the recognition, reaction and adaptation under time-pressure.”

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) August 24, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) August 24, 2026

The Holland example is notable in comparison with a similar event at a New Zealand exit involving Eben Etzebeth at the start of the game. In the Etzebeth instance, the big man is not reacting to Ox Nche wriggling back toward his own goalline on the ground, and thereby establishing a new offside line at the ruck. He does not adjust to the shift and is penalised, whereas Holland not only blocks down the kick by Grant Williams, he reacts outstandingly to the loose ball created.

How did each team manage the backfield in the defensive shift?

“There were two contrasting examples,” Tsimba notes.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) August 24, 2026

“At 65:18, Williams receives an outlet pass from a kick-shift and makes a line-break. The All Blacks’ backfield responds by looking to force a ruck which allows for a contest at the breakdown. This is called ‘danger to dominance’. Jordan recognises the opportunity and wins the race to the contest, resulting in a holding shift penalty against the Springboks.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) August 24, 2026

“At 68:36, after a ruck shift, quick passing finds Jordie Barrett who identifies kick space while the Springbok backfield is still scrambling to close it. That then creates an isolation and breakdown contest, eventually leading to a 22 entry, two yellow cards [the first on 21 Marco van Staden at the end of the clip] and a try in that shift sequence.

“So, there is a big contrast in how the two teams managed the defensive backfield once the original structure had been disrupted.”

Tsimba goes on to state how winning small moments in the shift can create a chain reaction further down the line.

“At 55:43, there is an excellent example of what I’m starting to think of as a shift sequence, where one shift creates the next,” he says.

“It starts with a shift penalty to the All Blacks at a crucial five-metre scrum, reversing the penalty trend up until that point. That leads to an exit and then a contestable kick from the Boks. Jordan wins the contest and adapts quickly to evade the defensive pressure, which creates a line-break for Damian McKenzie.

pic.twitter.com/jHTJtFwzCZ

— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) August 24, 2026

“That eventually leads to a scrum five metres out and Luke Jacobson’s try.

“So the entire sequence looks like this:

All Blacks scrum shift ?
All Blacks exit ?
Springbok contestable kick ?
Contest won by All Blacks ?
Adaptation by All Blacks ?
Line-break by All Blacks?
All Blacks 5m scrum ?
All Blacks try

“Sometimes a shift isn’t one isolated moment. It can become a chain reaction where one advantage creates the next, and a rolling wave of momentum in the unstructured moments of the game.”

Tsimba also makes one other pertinent comment on a scenario which arose towards the end of the first half, and how it might be treated differently in law.

“At 37:04 on the clock, the Springboks turn the ball over again at the ruck, creating a shift the All Blacks are beginning to exploit. However, the referee stops play because two All Blacks were lying injured on the other side of the field. It was a head clash which led to Ethan de Groot and Josh Lord being replaced for good.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) August 24, 2026

“The question that occurred to me concerned the nature of the restart in this situation.

“If the ball was effectively in the attacking team’s possession and the attacking team was beginning exploit the shift, why should the restart necessarily become a contest again if the ball was already being used effectively in transition?

“The referee’s decision to stop play was clearly the right one, as there are obvious protocols governing these situations. It’s more of a genuine shift/game-design question:

“When an external stoppage interrupts a shift, should the restart rehearse a contest which has already been won? Is there another way in which it can recreate the dynamic change in game state?”

These clips illustrate how the All Blacks reacted to fluid shifts in the game more quickly and more decisively than the Springboks. Even though South Africa won the aerial battle ‘set-piece’, they did not make as much use of the changes in possession they had engineered.

“The interesting story here is although South Africa won the contestable kick battle, the Test provided some fascinating examples of how the quality of the response after the initial shift can be just as important as winning the initial contest,” Tsimba says.
Rassie Erasmus has one week to fix the Springboks’ mindset and their technical accuracy before the second Test in Cape Town.