Bring on the All Blacks!! We break down the greatest rivalry with the Springboks vs All Blacks
“You’re not a real springbok until you face the All Blacks… Until you face that Haka… Until you’ve looked into the eyes of Tana Umaga going crazy doing the HAKA!” — Victor Matfield via eNCA on Friday night.
Tickets are still available for the absolute ripper that is the start to the opening Test of a brand-new four-match series branded Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry scheduled for this Saturday @ 17:10 SAST. That’s the DSTV time for all you dof oaks! The Bokke AKA the world’s number one ranked side lines up against the world’s number two, the reigning back-to-back World Cup champions against the team they beat by a single point in the 2023 final in Paris. Between them, the Springboks and All Blacks have lifted seven of the ten Rugby World Cups ever contested. This is as close as the sport gets to a heavyweight unification bout!
Springboks Team to Face the All Blacks
Pieter-Steph du Toit will lead the Springbok charge with Coach Rassie choosing to omit Siya Kolisi. When questioned, Rassie said: “Siya trained well with us this week, and although we could have selected him for this clash, we thought it would be best to select Paul (de Villiers) for this weekend’s game. Eben Etzebeth and Ruan Nortje form the lock pairing, Malcolm Marx starts at hooker with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu getting the nod at flyhalf and Grant Williams at outside scrumhalf. While the ever slick Damian Willemse, Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse make up an explosive back three. The big news for the Boks surrounds Damian de Allende who will become the 10th player in history to earn 100 Test caps for South Africa.
All Blacks Team to Face the Springboks
Dave Rennie’s All Blacks come in full strength after resting several stars through the provincial leg of the tour. Ardie Savea resumes the captaincy from number eight, while Will Jordan, Cam Roigard and Damian McKenzie — all managing niggles — have been passed fit to start. McKenzie takes fullback, with Jordan and Josh Moorby on the wings, Jordie Barrett and Quinn Tupaea in midfield, and Ruben Love partnering Roigard at halfback. Up front, Ethan de Groot, Codie Taylor and Tyrel Lomax bring well over 200 Test caps of scrummaging experience between them.
Springboks’ winning strategies
Territory, Pressure and the Springboks’ Kicking Game
The Springboks game is built on territory and pressure! The season’s numbers make that explicit: against England at Ellis Park, the Boks kicked the ball 30 times with 20 contestables and had a kick-to-pass ratio nearly THREE TIMES higher than New Zealand’s, a team that carries and passes to try to break defenses down rather than kicking. That’s not a bug — Rassie’s coaching staff treat it as a deliberate weapon. Analysts point out that a side that kicks heavily and carries less naturally posts slower ruck speeds as a simple consequence of style, and South Africa reach the tryline with fewer carries and rucks than almost any team in the world. The breakdown, for the Boks, isn’t there to generate quick ball — it’s there to reset the picture and manoeuvre the opposition sideways and backwards.
The Springbok Scrum Could Decide the Test
The scrum is where South Africa expects to make it. Whether it’s the starting front row or the bench, our Boks are widely rated as having the four best scrummaging props in the world, leaving the All Blacks hoping simply to hold their own; South Africa also holds an edge at the lineout, with more third-jumper options than the All Blacks. Since the 2023 World Cup, South Africa has fielded the top four props by percentage of scrum penalties won, and three of them — Wilco Louw, Gerhard Steenekamp and Jan-Hendrik Wessels — are named in this squad. The pattern coaches on both sides keep flagging is the cumulative scrum: Dave Rennie has identified that the danger for his side isn’t the first scrum of the day, it’s the twelfth and the thirteenth — South Africa hunts back-to-back penalties rather than one-off free-kicks, squeezes a side into its own corner, and converts that field position into points better than any team in the world.
The Aerial Battle at Ellis Park
The other Bok weapon is the aerial game, supercharged by the Johannesburg altitude. The bigger the occasion, the more South Africa tends to revert to its core strengths: scrummaging for penalties, driving mauls, and launching kicks in the air. Ellis Park’s 1,750m elevation means the ball hangs longer, turning the contestable kick into a genuine set-piece of its own — which is exactly why New Zealand has spent the week working on it specifically.
How the All Blacks Could Hurt the Springboks
If I were coaching the All Blacks, I’d try to deny the Boks exactly what they want: quick set-piece ball straight back into the corner. That means shorter, sharper kicking exchanges rather than absorbing 30 box-kicks a game, and using Roigard’s tempo relentlessly at forwards who are set up to grind, not sprint — attack the width before the Bok rush defence organises. I’d also accept some scrum losses as a cost of doing business rather than trying to win that battle outright; chasing parity there plays into South Africa’s hands. And I’d put real coaching hours into the high ball specifically — not generic aerial work, but retreating shape at altitude — because that’s the one exploitable crack South Africa will target from kickoff.
Ellis Park Sets the Stage for Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry
There’s also the occasion itself to reckon with. This isn’t just another one-off Test squeezed into a crowded window — it’s the opening shot of an entirely new format, the first proper touring series between these two sides since 1996. Ellis Park hosting it is no accident either; this is the ground where the Boks lifted their first World Cup against these very opponents back in ’95. Thirty-one years later, the stage is set for déjà vu, and New Zealand know it. Home advantage in this fixture has never been just a phrase — it comes with a 62,000-strong crowd, an altitude that punishes unfit legs, and history hanging over the tunnel.
Matthew Carley, Rassie Erasmus and the Pre-Match Mind Games
Matthew Carley has the whistle for Saturday, and Rassie’s already been at his mind games in the build-up — dragging a retired referee into his press conference this week to make a point about time-wasting at the lineout. Classic Erasmus misdirection! Whether it shifts a single call on the day is anyone’s guess, but it’s had the rugby world talking about little else for two days, which is exactly the effect he wanted.
Springboks vs All Blacks Prediction
So what actually happens? I’m backing the Boks to win the arm-wrestle they’re built to win. Expect a stop-start, penalty-heavy first 50 minutes as both packs feel each other out at scrum time, before the scoreboard pressure and altitude start doing their work in the final quarter. South Africa’s kicking game and bench firepower should be enough to pull them clear late — call it an eight-to-twelve-point Bok win, with the game decided more by penalties and territory than any single moment of magic. Damian de Allende bringing up his century of caps in a series-opening win at Ellis Park would be some way to mark the occasion.
The Final Word
Everything about this Test points to a battle worthy of the rivalry. The All Blacks arrive with pace, attacking ambition and enough individual quality to punish the smallest mistake, but South Africa have the weapons to dictate where and how this game is played. If the Bok scrum starts squeezing, the aerial contest begins falling their way and New Zealand are forced to play from uncomfortable field positions, Ellis Park could become a very long afternoon for the visitors.
The key may simply be patience. South Africa don’t need to produce spectacular rugby from the opening whistle. They need to absorb the All Blacks’ early energy, win the collisions, dominate territory and keep applying pressure until the opportunities arrive. Against a New Zealand side this dangerous, discipline will matter just as much as dominance.
And then there is Ellis Park itself. The altitude, the noise, the history and 62,000 South Africans willing every green-and-gold jersey forward make this considerably more than another Test match. The All Blacks will come looking to spoil the occasion, but the Springboks have an opportunity to make an enormous statement in the opening chapter of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry.
My call: South Africa win by 8–12 points. It won’t necessarily be pretty, but against the All Blacks, nobody remembers pretty. They remember who won.
Kick-off is 17:10 SAST this Saturday. Get the braai going early, get SuperSport Rugby tuned in, and get behind the Bokke — Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry starts now!
BACKING THE BOKKE?
Bokkie has compared South Africa’s leading sportsbooks so you can check the odds, markets and betting features before kick-off.
[ COMPARE SPORTSBOOKS ]
18+ | Bet Responsibly
