HISTORY BECKONS: All Blacks eye first back-to-back Test wins over Boks in SA in three decades

All Blacks coach Dave Rennie is not a man for hyperbole, and you’d imagine he would be a marketing executive’s worst nightmare.

Rennie doesn’t indulge in hype. Whether his team wins or loses, his equanimity is constant. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. At least not publicly.

Of course, after eight games in charge of the All Blacks, which include four Tests and four matches against South African club teams, he has yet to taste defeat with the black fern on his chest.

At about 7pm on Saturday, we might see that equanimity challenged one way or the other.

Last week’s 33-16 first Test victory stunned South Africa and the Boks. And now the All Blacks can twist the knife even further.

If the All Blacks beat the Boks in the second of four Greatest Rivalry Tests, they cannot lose the series. That might even raise a smile from Rennie, but don’t bet your house on it.

More than that though, the All Blacks would have claimed the moral victory regardless of what the Boks do in Tests three and four. Consecutive wins on consecutive weekends against the Boks on home soil are rare.

In South Africa, the Boks haven’t lost to the same team in consecutive Tests since the 1997 British & Irish Lions won the opening two Tests of that series.

The last time the Boks lost on consecutive weekends to the same opponents was against a Dave Rennie-coached Wallabies, in Australia in 2021.

If the All Blacks lose, it’s doubtful Rennie will throw his toys out of the cot. Equanimity. Also, the All Blacks are in the enviable position of front-runners in the series. At worst, if they lose, the outcome of the series will be a 50/50 shootout with two Tests to go.

Asked about the possibility of a 2-0 series lead, cementing their place at the top of the world rankings and how significant that would be, Rennie reached for his dead bat.

“We haven’t talked at all about the series. I’m not remotely interested in world rankings,” Rennie said. “I don’t even understand them.”

“They can change on a whim, somehow. I think it counts for very little. You win a World Cup, you’re a world champion, and you’ve got that tag for four years. Yeah, our focus is on the 80 minutes on Saturday.”

Key areas

And what will the All Blacks focus on?

“We’re aware of the potential bounce back [from the Boks]. Obviously, they’ll be really disappointed with last weekend.

“There’s been a lot of talk around how they bounced back last year [the Boks lost at 24-17 Eden Park and won 43-10 in Wellington]. We’ve touched on it, and we’re well aware that Springboks at their best are tough to beat anywhere.

“But we’ve talked a lot about us being better. We think we can be a lot better than we were last weekend. So that’s the key, we’ve got to be able to lift our level because we know they’re going to be better.

“We don’t want to focus totally on what South Africa are going to bring, we want to focus on what we can bring.”

The buzzwords have been about a Bok “backlash”, although what it looks like is not that clear.

Asked what he and the All Blacks had predicted a Bok backlash would look like, Rennie was guarded.

“I think they’ll just try and do what they did last week, but try and do it better. Their mindset will be to attack us at set piece, put more ball in the air, try, get a big wall in front of us and try and spend as much time in our 22 as they can.

“But, you know, Rassie’s [Bok coach Rassie Erasmus] in a better position to let you know exactly what that looks like.”

The idea that a “backlash” conjures up is more physicality, more brutality. In reality, though, the Boks don’t need more of those aspects – they more than had the measure of the All Blacks in contact and in the set piece last week.

What the world champions need is better composure on attack, more polished ball security and patience in the red zone. Against the All Blacks, a return of one score from 11 visits to New Zealand’s 22 is not going to cut it.

Rennie, of course, is aware that the Boks won’t be as profligate again, so his message to his players is not to allow the Boks entries into the red zone.

To do that, the All Blacks must concede fewer penalties, and to achieve that, they must shore up their scrum in particular.

“We need to improve in the contact area, especially early when they’re full of energy,” Rennie said.

“We struggled to go forward, so we need to be a lot better around that area. Discipline-wise, we gave away way too many soft penalties, especially early in the game, which is disappointing because it’s something we’ve spoken about.

“You give them an easy entry into your 22, so that needs to be better. I think scrum-wise, obviously we’ve spoken with World Rugby around a couple of issues from our point of view.

“So, we think scrum-wise we’ll be a lot better. There was a massive in for them last week, so there are elements that we need to be better on.”

Ref change

There has been a late change to the referee for the match. Georgian Nika Amashukeli has come down with illness and has been replaced by Australian Angus Gardner.

Brett Cronan (Australia) will act as his Television Match Official, with Eric Gauzins (France) becoming Foul Play Review Officer and Sam Grove-White (Scotland) replacing Gardner as an assistant referee.

Amashukeli will now referee the third Test of the series in Johannesburg on 5 September, instead of Gardner, with Gauzins as his TMO and the Australian official to act as his assistant referee.

Rennie appeared unfazed by the late change in match official.

“No, nothing changes really. I think those guys have been all over it,” Rennie said.

“Angus was going to be involved on the edge [assistant ref] anyway, so they’ve been having discussions based on, I’d imagine, things that South Africa have sent in or questioned, and likewise with us.