All Blacks great: Springboks achievement ‘extraordinary’ with 4-0 thrashing ‘a realistic possibility’
Kurt-Lee Arendse sprinting away from All Blacks defence and New Zealand great Andrew Mehrtens.
Former All Blacks star Andrew Mehrtens has praised the Springboks for playing at such a consistently high level during Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.
South Africa claimed a 3-1 success over New Zealand, winning three Tests in a row after dropping the first in Johannesburg.
The All Blacks briefly overtook the Boks in the World Rugby rankings after that Ellis Park triumph, but Rassie Erasmus’ men regained their place at the summit and then extended their lead.
Springboks clear at the top
“You’ve got to be on your game for 80 minutes against the Springboks and that’s good, they’re the world champions,” Mehrtens told the I Love Rugby podcast.
“For them to be at 95 points [in the world rankings], they’ve just beaten the second ranked team in the world, that’s an extraordinary achievement to be at that level.
“I thought it was wonderful for the sport, fantastic for both countries, hopefully it’s worked well for South Africa in terms of getting more profile – we know it’s a wonderful place to visit with the safaris etc.
“Hopefully it’s worked well for New Zealand too and we can hope in four years’ time we can showcase our country as well on a global platform.”
Mehrtens was delighted the All Blacks managed to grab one Test, with a 4-0 drubbing ‘realistic’ before the series according to the former fly-half, and that they kept it competitive despite the defeats in Cape Town, Soweto and Baltimore.
“We could have been competitive in that whole series and lost it 4-0, I thought 4-0 was a realistic possibility,” he said.
“To think that we won the Test that I identified as probably being the hardest to win; coming in at Ellis Park, the first Test of the series with the Boks fired up on their home patch, I thought that would be the hardest to win.
“To win that I was absolutely overjoyed. There were some reasons for it and the rub of the green probably favoured the All Blacks in that Test, I think the rub of the green favoured the Boks a little bit in the second Test in Cape Town.
“It was not luck, it was just little things that could be 50/50 and the moment went one team’s way at Ellis Park and then the other team’s way [in Cape Town]. To be 1-1 after Cape Town was a good achievement.”
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All Blacks’ high risk strategy
The 53-year-old also backed the All Blacks’ game plan under Dave Rennie. While the all-out attacking style is fraught with risk, Mehrtens felt that it was their only way to defeat the Springboks.
“To lose 3-1, result-wise that’s disappointing but performance-wise I just thought it was fantastic,” he said. “For our guys to go across to what is the toughest environment in world rugby, I look at other teams in the world and with all due respect, on their day France, England and Ireland have the muscle, the density to compete with South Africa, but I don’t think over a four-Test series.
“New Zealand is slightly different and I think our best chance of winning any of those games and the series was to move the ball around and have a go.
“We did that and it didn’t always work out because we were under immense pressure but there was so much good play.
“If we had tried to play a less expansive game or a less attacking game, we stood no chance in the series anyway, so it was our best chance.
“When we were good, we were very, very good and then mistakes happened. You look at Arendse’s try in the Test in Baltimore, there’s just that pressure.”