All Blacks legend’s grim Ellis Park prediction as Rassie Erasmus shows Scott Robertson ‘the way’
Ex-All Blacks Murray Mexted does not fancy the All Blacks chances in South Africa (Photos by James Foy/Speed Media/Icon Sportswire and AAP Image/Darren England)
Former All Blacks loose forward Murray Mexted has warned punters not to bet on Scott Robertson’s charges defeating the Springboks in the Rugby Championship as Rassie Erasmus continues to show the way in Test rugby.
Robertson’s side head to the Republic for back-to-back Test matches against the world champions and Mexted does not give them much of a chance in the opener as they lack the ‘big men’ to go toe-to-toe with the Boks.
The two sides collide at the venue which famously played host to the 1995 World Cup final between the two rivals, Ellis Park, and with the clash being on the highveld, the All Blacks‘ great only sees one winner.
Rugby Championship heats up
New Zealand arrive in South Africa with a 1-1 record in the Rugby Championship and now front up against the table toppers who claimed a full house of points from the first two rounds.
While Mexted has given New Zealand little chance of claiming a win in Johannesburg, he hopes that Robertson will re-ignite the team and get them pulling in the same direction, but believes that selections have to be spot on in order to do that.
“You can’t step into a Test series against the Springboks in South Africa unless you pick the right players,” Mexted told The Platform NZ.
“You can play Argentina in New Zealand with some of the players that maybe shouldn’t be in the team but you’re not going to be able to do that in South Africa at altitude.
“Everyone seems to forget about altitude, I played in South Africa for several years and every time you go from the coast up to the highveld you are asthmatic 10 minutes into the second half and it’s really a big deal.
“The chances of beating South Africa at Ellis Park in the next game are highly unlikely for all those punters who want to throw their money away.
“This is going to be a tall order. The South Africans are hot and they have got big men who are hard and both Argentina and Australia lack the size and the hardness that we will run into at Ellis Park.”
Rassie has got it right
Much of the talk around the Springboks this year has been the attacking revolution that has occurred under new attack coach and ex-All Blacks fly-half Tony Brown, who joined Erasmus’ staff this year.
However, the Boks showed that they still have their traditional strengths in their arsenal with the scrum dominating in the first Test match against Australia and the maul in the second.
Mexted is eager to see how the All Blacks coach will look to nullify the Boks’ strengths as he cannot find the players in the squad currently who are of the right physical stature to achieve this.
“Rassie Erasmus has shown the way, I think that Razor is aware of this, I can’t wait to hear the All Blacks team named for this Test – I’m sitting on the edge of my seat – he has got to get some big men in there,” Mexted said.
“If you look at our back five, how many lineout forwards do we have that can compete against South Africa or in the air for possession? The game’s all about possession particularly if you’re playing a team like South Africa at altitude, you’ve got to have the ball, certainly got to have the ball going forward if you can – to achieve that they have got to have big men.
“You need two big locks – like Whitelock and Retallick would be bloody great – but they are gone, so Robertson has got to replace them with big men and then he has got to have somebody in the loose forwards that’s a Jerome Kaino or taller – a Pieter-Steph du Toit for example.
“We’ve got to have three seriously big men who are motivated and are tough and I’m battling to find that in the forwards we’ve got at the moment.”
All Blacks don’t have enough
Mexted pointed to the defeat to Argentina to highlight the importance of getting the set-pieces right, with the All Blacks’ lineout struggling with the threats that Los Pumas had in the air.
“It’s essential that we have variety in the lineout, in the first Test against Argentina our lineout was woeful and made me wonder who was calling our lineouts because we couldn’t win our own lineouts it was terrible,” he added.
“It was better in our second Test but it was because we threw to about four different jumpers, so they moved it around well, but you need to have a bit of elevation and size – I’m not sure we’ve got enough of that at the moment. The Springboks do have that with their two locks and Du Toit and you have got to be able to match that and fight fire with fire, particularly at altitude.”
