The Springboks will need an improved performance from their past two games against the Wallabies, if they want to beat the All Blacks in New Zealand.
The Springboks will need to make a number of improvements if they are to pick up a rare win in New Zealand to keep their hopes alive of retaining the Rugby Championship over the next few weeks.
The Boks face a massive two-game tour of their biggest rivals, and need to pick up at least one win to keep them in the hunt and give them the best chance heading into their final two matches against Argentina.
A shock loss against the Wallabies at Ellis Park put the Boks on the back foot, but they bounced back with a win in Cape Town, and coupled with Los Pumas picking up their first ever win against the All Blacks on home soil, essentially levelled the playing field heading into the second round of fixtures.
However, two losses in New Zealand would likely deal a death blow to their chances of winning this year’s Rugby Championship, so the Boks will be desperate to clinch at least one win.
In their incredible rivalry, that has spanned over a century, the Boks have only won 10 matches in New Zealand, while losing 32, and drawing three.
Since rugby turned professional in 1995 — 30 years ago — the Boks have picked up just four wins over the All Blacks on their home turf, with them winning 13-3 in Wellington in 1998, 30-28 in Dunedin in 2008 and 32-29 in Hamilton in 2009.
Their most recent win in New Zealand came in 2018, when they triumphed 36-34 in Wellington, and since then they have only played twice more in the country, drawing 16-all in Wellington in 2019 and losing 35-20 in Auckland in 2023.
Golden opportunity
The Boks now have a golden opportunity to pick up another win Down Under, and possibly even two, which would equal their best ever winning run of six consecutive wins against the All Blacks, which they achieved between 1937 and 1949.
But to do that they will have to be better than they were in their two matches against the Wallabies in South Africa, even though the All Blacks have shown that they themselves are not infallible.
The breakdown will be a big concern for the Boks, after they were largely bossed at it by the Aussies, while they also struggled there against the Italians earlier in the season, so that will be a big work-on for them.
Their set-piece is another integral part of their game that they will want to improve, with their scrum relatively solid, but not as dominant as usual, while their lineouts have gone from awful to good, and that will need stability.
They will also need to settle on a game-plan that suits them against the All Blacks, as their attempt at trying something different blew up in their face against Australia at Ellis Park, so making sure they are all on the same page will be crucial.
With them having won their last four straight games against the All Blacks, the Boks can be considered slight favourites, but none of those wins came in New Zealand and that is now the wall they have to overcome.
