Codie Taylor has led the All Blacks for the first time in his career, and marked it with two tries in a 50-19 win over the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on Saturday.
The 35-year-old hooker, a centurion who has passed 100 tests for New Zealand, was the third player to captain the side on this tour of South Africa. He took over from lock Patrick Tuipulotu, who led the tourists to a 38-21 win over the Stormers in Cape Town on 7 August, and flanker Luke Jacobson, who was in charge for a 54-0 win over the Sharks in Durban on 11 August. Season captain Ardie Savea has been rested through the provincial matches and comes back into the side for the first test against the Springboks at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on 22 August.
Head coach Dave Rennie announced the captaincy two days before kickoff. “Huge congratulations to Codie on his first All Blacks captaincy. He is a top man and has done a great job leading this tour group,” Rennie said in the team announcement reported by 1News.
The match itself was one-sided for an hour. The All Blacks led 24-0 at the break and finished with eight tries. Wing Josh Moorby scored two, Leroy Carter scored two, Taylor scored two, and Rieko Ioane and Wallace Sititi added one each. The Bulls, playing their first match since June, replied through lock Ruan Vermaak, Stravino Jacobs and Marcell Coetzee, all in the second half.
Loose forward Anton Segner was named man of the match after a game in which he made 13 tackles and 12 carries and won several turnovers at the breakdown. His most useful moment was not on the scoreboard at all. He held a Bulls ball carrier up over the line to force a line dropout when the home side had built pressure. Rennie was blunt about the 25-year-old’s night. “Anton was massive,” he told RugbyPass afterwards.
Segner was less willing to treat the margin as the story. “I don’t think the scoreboard reflects how hard of a game it was, especially there in that second half,” he said. “They came out firing and really put us under the pump.” He also pointed to the sign in the tunnel at Loftus that records the ground’s altitude of about 1,350 metres, and said he could feel the difference.
Altitude is one of the reasons this fixture mattered more than a normal warm-up. Pretoria sits high enough that visiting sides tire in ways they do not at sea level, and the All Blacks had not played at that height on tour before Saturday. The Stormers game was in Cape Town and the Sharks game was in Durban, both at sea level. The three tests scheduled in South Africa are at Ellis Park and FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, which are higher again, and at Cape Town in between.
Carter was the other name to come out of the match with his selection case improved. The wing scored twice, made 16 carries and broke the line five times. Beauden Barrett started at fullback after wearing the number 10 jersey against the Stormers, part of a shuffling of the back three that has been forced on Rennie as much as chosen by him.
Three backs were unavailable. Will Jordan picked up a back problem during the week and is expected to be fit for the first test. Halfback Cam Roigard withdrew late with a tight calf. Damian McKenzie is carrying an ankle injury from the Sharks match. Wing Caleb Clarke flew home earlier in the week with a shoulder injury, the third player lost from the touring squad.
Across the three provincial games the All Blacks have scored an average of 47 points and conceded 13. The caveat is obvious, since all three opponents were club sides in their pre-season rather than test teams, and the Bulls had not played a competitive match in two months. The more useful markers were in the detail. Penalties conceded dropped from 16 against the Stormers to eight against the Bulls, and none of those eight were given away in scoring positions. The scrum, which wobbled in Cape Town, held up in Pretoria against a Bulls pack that included several Springboks.
Taylor was asked afterwards whether the tour form meant anything against what is coming. He was careful not to overstate it. “No disrespect to the Bulls but they (the Springboks) will lift the tempo and physicality,” he said, in comments carried by the Associated Press.
Rennie had framed the game the same way before it started. “This is also our final hit out before the first Test match against the Springboks, so it is an important game for us,” he said. “There is healthy competition for Test spots so another opportunity for players to put their hands up for selection.” On the evidence of Saturday, that competition has made his week harder rather than easier, with Segner, Carter and Barrett all pushing claims that were not obvious a fortnight ago.
This is the first full tour of South Africa by the All Blacks in the old style for 30 years, with provincial matches sitting between the tests rather than a standalone series flown in and out of. The four tests run on consecutive weekends, at Ellis Park on 22 August, DHL Stadium in Cape Town on 29 August, FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on 5 September and, in a first for the fixture, M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore on 12 September. A match against the Lions at Ellis Park on 25 August sits between the first two tests. The series is scheduled to be played every four years, with New Zealand hosting the return tour in 2030.
Full details of results and remaining fixtures are on the All Blacks tour page, and RNZ has a full match report.
What did you make of the tour form so far, and does beating three provincial sides tell us anything about how the test series will go? Leave a comment below and let us know.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply