WAR OF ATTRITION: Boks prepare to peak as All Blacks face test of endurance

The Springboks have developed a reputation for peaking at the right time over the course of a golden era that has yielded back-to-back World Cups, a British & Irish Lions series victory and three Rugby Championship titles.

Since 2018, the coaches have managed the wider squad to ensure that all of the players in the group have remained fresh as well as match-fit.

This strategy has proved especially effective at World Cup tournaments and on the 2025 tour to Europe, where 37 players were used over the course of five gruelling weeks.

In a sense, the latter tour was a dry run for the 2026 Greatest Rivalry Tests series against the All Blacks and for the 2027 World Cup playoffs, with both staged over four consecutive weeks.

Fast forward to the present, where Rassie Erasmus is preparing his charges for the second half of the Greatest Rivalry Test series.

The Bok coach believes that the coming Tests may prove a lot tougher than the recent internationals at Ellis Park and Cape Town Stadium, and that squad management may prove decisive.

Tougher Tests

“I’ve been involved in a Lions series both as a player and coach, and the series only gets really competitive when you reach the third match,” Erasmus said.

“Not that the last two games weren’t competitive, but it’s in weeks three and four when you start getting injuries, and we always felt that the fourth match was going to be a decider.

“I know a lot of people predicted a 4-0 result beforehand, but we always thought it would go down to the last game.”

Game minutes tell a story

The All Blacks have suffered five serious injuries over the course of the tour, and their depth will be tested when the series enters the final stage over the next fortnight.

As many as 10 of the All Blacks’ leading players have racked up more than 200 minutes over the past six weeks, and may struggle to maintain their performance at FNB Stadium this Saturday and in Baltimore, US next weekend.

By contrast, only two Boks have played more than 200 minutes in his period – which includes the one-off against Argentina in Buenos Aires, and all the Greatest Rivalry matches – and there’s a feeling in the camp that the South Africans are only starting to hit their peak.

It should be noted that a significant number of players including Siya Kolisi, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Eben Etzebeth and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu came into this series underdone, after missing a lot of rugby due to injuries. After two or three matches in the saddle, they should be ready to take their performance to the next level.

“We've used 30 players [across the first three Tests] and that’s already a lot of chopping and changing,” noted Erasmus.

“I guess by the last game we would have used 36 and that’s almost the whole squad that we have here.

“But I think we’ve managed [well]. I looked at the minutes [played] of the New Zealand players over the past six weeks, because that’s normally the indication rather than the number of matches.

“I then looked at the minutes we’ve played over the past six weeks and we’ve probably played 60 minutes fewer than them, on average.

“So hopefully we won’t be punch-drunk for this game or the next.”

The average difference in game minutes is actually 57 – but that figure accounts for all games played by all players in the respective Boks and All Blacks squads over the past six weeks.

Those figures don’t provide the full picture, though.

If you eliminate the players who are yet to play a Test in this period – Jamie Hannah and Noah Hotham, for example, joined the squad later and only featured against the Lions – the difference becomes more pronounced.

The All Blacks' Test stars have averaged 189 minutes in this period, while the Bok players have averaged 100.

Boxing clever

Damian Willemse is expected to recover from a hamstring injury and will travel with the Boks to Baltimore this Sunday.

Grant Williams will be on the flight to the US, as will Handré Pollard and Canan Moodie, who both featured against Argentina but are yet to face the All Blacks in this series.

Six “newcomers” could feature in Baltimore, as per Erasmus’ suggestion that 36 will be used over the course of the four Tests.

That said, Erasmus will need to strike a balance in terms of how he manages his players over the next two games, given that both fixtures are essentially do-or-die.

Malcolm Marx, Etzebeth, Pieter-Steph Du Toit, Damian de Allende, Feinberg-Mngomezulu and others need to be managed with both games in mind. The Bok coach will want his star players fit and firing for a fourth Test that amounts to a series decider.

Of course, if the Boks lose at the FNB Stadium on Saturday, they won’t have the opportunity to clinch the series in Baltimore.

With that scenario in mind, Erasmus may need his best players on the pitch during the latter stages of the clash at Soccer City, to improve South Africa’s chances of victory.

Mantra of continuity

All Blacks coach Dave Rennie has used 49 New Zealand players over the course of the tour, but only 28 have been backed for the first three Tests.

While Rennie has made several changes to his pack ahead of the game at Soccer City, the All Blacks appear to be sticking to their mantra of continuity.

One can understand why the New Zealanders aren’t looking beyond this weekend. While the Greatest Rivalry is essentially a four-Test tournament, there are many on either side of the divide who feel that the series within the series is what really matters.

Either Rennie’s All Blacks are going to emulate the “Incomparables”, who became the first New Zealand side to win a Test series in South Africa back in 1996, or Erasmus’ Boks are going to make some history of their own.

The All Blacks may be content to win 2-1 in South Africa and lose the final game in Baltimore – and a 2-2 series outcome may well be viewed as a success, given they were written off by many in the lead-up to this tour.

Knowing that, Rennie may be less concerned than Erasmus about juggling his resources and managing his team to peak in the fourth match.

And yet, the wisdom of backing a similar match 23 across three consecutive matches will be tested when the game at FNB Stadium reaches the second half and fatigue starts to set in.

Fresher players such as loose forward Wallace Sititi should make an impact for the tourists, but the effects of a long and taxing tour may be felt by the likes of Luke Jacobson, Tupou Vaa'i, Fabian Holland, Anton Lienert-Brown and others who have played a lot of rugby in recent weeks. DM