KEO UNCUT | All Blacks coach Rennie knows how to win in SA

South Africans will see all 43 All Blacks in action in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry’s first three tour matches against the Stormers, Sharks and Bulls.

All Blacks captain Ardie Savea, the 44th player, will only arrive in time for the first Test at Ellis Park, which is the fourth match of the eight matches the All Blacks will play.

Seven of those matches will be in South Africa, which includes three Tests, and the fourth and final one in Baltimore, in the US.

All Blacks coach Dave Rennie said on the team’s departure from New Zealand that the match 23s for the first three matches had been selected to ensure game time for the entire squad. He said the first Test match 23 had been selected.

Injuries could still influence changes in the 23 that front the Springboks in the Test series opener.

Rennie said three uncapped players in naming 10 additional players to the 34 he picked for the July Test matches against France, Italy and Ireland. The All Blacks won all three matches.

There were six uncapped players in the 34, which takes the number to nine newbies Rennie has introduced in his first two months as All Blacks coach.

He has a particularly good record against South African opposition. He coached the Chiefs to back-to-back Super Rugby titles, and during that time he won 18 out of 24 matches against South African sides.

He knows how to win in South Africa, with the Chiefs beating the Stormers in successive seasons in Super Rugby’s quarterfinals.

It would be an incredible result if history repeated itself

Rennie, as Wallabies coach, also won three from four against the Springboks when Jacques Nienaber was head coach and Rassie Erasmus was national director of rugby.

Rennie’s success over the years against South African teams is one reason he was appointed as New Zealand chases the world No 1 ranking from the Springboks, aiming for the second-ever Test-series win in South Africa for the Kiwis and a World Cup title in Australia in 2027.

The All Blacks won the World Cup in 1987, 2011 and 2015 and lost the 2023 final by a single point to the Springboks.

The last time the All Blacks played in South Africa in 2024, they lost back-to-back Rugby Championship Tests at Ellis Park and Cape Town Stadium. The margins were small, with the Johannesburg win being four points and the Cape Town win six points.

Historically, four points have separated these two rugby nations over 105 years and 110 Tests.

Expect history to be repeated in the series. It is going to be tight on the scoreboard.

The timing of the tour matches has been complicated for South Africa’s four United Rugby Championship (URC) teams. Ordinarily, they would be in a pre-season phase, with the URC’s start still more than six weeks away.

However, each of the coaches has had to adjust the pre-season, fast-track match-intensity preparation and get their best available 23 players ready to play the All Blacks.

It is unknown what the URC clubs will be able to deliver, given the complexities of the scheduling.

Only a handful of Erasmus’s extended Springbok squad will be released to play in the matches, with 40-plus players excluded from the tour games.

The Lions, who have the fewest players in the national set-up, are the least affected, and the Sharks and Bulls are the most hit by Springbok call-ups.

The Stormers will be without Damian Willemse, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Paul de Villiers and Zach Porthen, but they do have the core of their preferred URC match 23 available for the tour opener on Friday evening.

Stormers coach John Dobson has promised the effort and commitment will be there from his team, and the motivation will be to upset the All Blacks.

It is 50 years since the All Blacks played a tour match in Cape Town, which they lost 12-11 to Western Province at Newlands. WP flyhalf Robbie Blair famously kicked a touchline conversion with the last kick of the match.

It would be an incredible result if history repeated itself.