The All Blacks begin their first full tour of South Africa since 1996 this weekend, an eight match trip that runs for six weeks, takes in four tests against the Springboks and finishes, oddly enough, in Baltimore.
The tour opens against the Stormers at DHL Stadium in Cape Town, kicking off at 5am on Saturday 8 August New Zealand time. From there the side flies to Durban to play the Sharks at Kings Park on 11 August, then to Pretoria to meet the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld on 15 August. The first test is at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on 22 August local time, with a fourth provincial match against the Lions at the same ground three days later. The second test returns to Cape Town on 29 August, the third is at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on 5 September, and both teams then travel to Maryland for the fourth and final test on 12 September. It will be the first time the two countries have played each other on American soil. The full schedule was confirmed in October last year.
Nothing like it has happened in the professional era. Long reciprocal tours were the ordinary shape of international rugby until 1996, when New Zealand, Australia and South Africa formed a joint venture, launched the Tri Nations and effectively retired the format. Bringing this one back required SANZAAR to shift The Rugby Championship from an annual competition to a biennial one, and it commits South Africa to a return tour of New Zealand in 2030.
New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Lancaster leaned on the history when the squad was named. “This is the next chapter in one of our sport’s defining rivalries. It is our first full-scale, old-style tour in 30 years, since ‘The Incomparables’ led by Sean Fitzpatrick pulled off the All Blacks’ first series win in South Africa in 1996,” he said. Lancaster said around 3,000 fans were expected to travel for the tour, most of them from New Zealand.
That 1996 side remains the reference point because sides sent in 1928, 1949, 1960, 1970 and 1976 all failed to win a series in South Africa. Fitzpatrick’s team won 2-1 and the label has stuck ever since.
Head coach Dave Rennie and selectors Sir Graham Henry and Neil Barnes named a 44 player squad in late July, retaining all 34 from the Nations Championship group and adding ten more. Prop Siale Lauaki, loose forward Semisi Tupou Ta’eiloa and inside back Josh Jacomb are uncapped. Tamaiti Williams, Scott Barrett and Leicester Fainga’anuku are unavailable through injury.
Rennie was blunt about what the trip demands. “With eight matches in six weeks, including a four-Test series against the Springboks, this would have to be the toughest tour in rugby. Every player will be required to play their part across this tour, whether it’s preparing to play or helping their mates prepare,” he said. He framed the whole exercise as groundwork for the 2027 World Cup.
Captain Ardie Savea has been given time off and will not join the squad until closer to the first test, so hooker Codie Taylor leads the side through the three provincial matches. Taylor and Rennie both said they were caught out by the reception in Cape Town, where more than 4,000 people turned up to an official welcome event at the stadium.
“We walked out and there were a few thousand fans screaming and it was a bit of a sea of black in terms of the jerseys and stuff they’re wearing,” Taylor told RNZ. “The fans over here are just a whole other level.”
Cape Town has long been friendly territory for visiting New Zealand sides, a legacy of the apartheid years when the Springboks selected only white players and a large part of the city’s mixed race community backed the tourists instead. Rennie said the support was “incredible” and that the players would try to see something of the country between matches, though he acknowledged the schedule is tight enough that one group will be training while another plays.
Forwards coach Jason Ryan said the first three matches would be used to try combinations and take some risks with the ball, while conceding there is a limit to how much the coaches will show before Ellis Park. He was direct about the size of the task. “They’re the best in the world. They’re a big pack,” Ryan said of the Springboks. “They know clearly what their identity is around their scrum and their maul, so us having genuine preparation around that is important.”
For a handful of players the provincial games are a live audition. Wallace Sititi, who was a surprise omission from the side that beat Ireland 40-21 in Auckland last month, said the drop stung. The 23 year old had started the previous week in the 47-17 win over Italy in Wellington but made more errors than Rennie wanted.
“The All Blacks is a high-performance environment that expects the best, and when you don’t play your best, they get someone (else) to do it, because there’s a lot of quality out here,” Sititi told reporters on Monday. “Obviously, it’s tough, but at the same time, we support each other, and we look after each other.”
If Sititi is picked for the Stormers match he returns to the ground where he made his first start for the All Blacks two years ago, on his 22nd birthday. “One thing I do know is very good memories here in Cape Town. I really loved it out here,” he said.
Six weeks is a long time to hold a squad together in a country where the home crowd is rarely gentle, and the four test series is the first of its length between these two teams. Whether the tour produces anything like 1996 will not be clear until September, but the format itself is the story before a ball is kicked.
What do you make of the return of the old style tour, and can this side match what Fitzpatrick’s team did in 1996? Leave a comment below and tell us what you think.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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