Mind games escalate as Boks and All Blacks build towards Ellis Park

The barbs, digs and mind games that traditionally precede a Springboks–All Blacks Test are already in full swing ahead of Saturday's first Test, with a fresh conspiracy narrative gathering pace over the past week.

It began with remarks by Sir John Kirwan on Ric Salizzo's Rugby Rivals podcast, co-hosted by former Springbok lock Victor Matfield. Kirwan's suggestion that South Africa's warm-up opponents – the Stormers, Sharks and Bulls – had been suspiciously reluctant to deploy the Springboks' trademark high-ball game drew a wave of criticism, much of it aimed at what commentators dismissed as conspiracy theorising. 

Kirwan went further, describing the pattern as unsportsmanlike and intimidatory, and suggesting the provinces had deliberately shown the All Blacks a false picture of what to expect – deceit, in his telling, designed to lead the tourists down the garden path to defeat.

Similar, though more measured, observations were made on the Aotearoa Podcast (see The Gazette's sport report of 18 August), lending the theory further momentum.

The narrative gained fresh legs this morning, 19 August, when Annemie Bester of Rugby365 reported that Springboks assistant coach Felix Jones had credited close contact with the national side's franchise coaches – John Dobson, JP Pietersen, Ivan Rooyen and Johan Ackermann – for confirming what the Boks had already identified in the All Blacks' attack, defence and kicking game from the Nations Championship.

There is, however, little evidence the provinces held anything back or tailored their tactics to mislead the tourists. All four sides bar the Stormers were comprehensively beaten, and their coaches reported genuine frustration rather than restraint – particularly at their inability to convert repeated lineout and maul opportunities inside the All Blacks' 10-metre zone, hampered by defenders illegally slowing the maul by pulling players down or lifting a leg.

Writing for Planet Rugby, Alex Spink offered a starker account of the provinces' form. The Bulls, tasked with softening up the All Blacks before the Test series, instead conceded half a century of points before finally landing a blow of their own. Bulls captain Marcell Coetzee, asked whether the fixture's pre-season timing had counted against his side, was unapologetic: “We wanted this game. We wanted to play against the second-best team in the world.”

By half-time in Pretoria the All Blacks led 24–0, having by then played three successive halves of rugby without conceding a point – 78 points scored to nil across 120 minutes. A late Bulls rally, while welcomed by the Loftus crowd, came too late to affect the outcome.

All Blacks hooker and captain Codie Taylor was measured in response. 

“No disrespect to the Bulls,” he said, “but I imagine the Springboks are looking at this and thinking we are going to lift up the tempo and lift up the physicality. That's what Test match footie is all about.”

New Zealand head into the game on 22 August under no illusions about the scale of the challenge that awaits – against opponents who beat them in the last World Cup final and inflicted a record defeat on them at their most recent meeting. 

With Siya Kolisi's hamstring injury the one blot on an otherwise ideal build-up, Rugby's Greatest Rivalry series could scarcely be better poised.