Bulls v All Blacks: Five takeaways as Dave Rennie’s tourists ‘ready’ for Springboks Tests as head coach left pondering after ‘final round of auditions’
Josh Moorby scoring a try v the Bulls with an inset of Anton Segner
Following the All Blacks’ 50-19 win over the Bulls in game three of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series, here are our five key takeaways.
The top line
The All Blacks continued their winning run on South African soil with a comfortable 50-19 win over the Bulls, which will leave them brimming with confidence ahead of the upcoming Tests against the Springboks.
Eight tries, matching that of their win over the Sharks, were run in across the evening, coming courtesy of braces from Josh Moorby, Codie Taylor and Leroy Carter alongside further efforts from Rieko Ioane and Wallace Sititi.
The Bulls did get three of their own, with Ruan Vermaak, Stravino Jacobs and Marcell Coetzee going over the whitewash, but it was mere consolation as the All Blacks had outright dominance on the night.
Simply put, this was a performance that showed the All Blacks are ready for the Test series now. They held the front-foot up-front, improved their attack from even their previous outing against the Sharks and overall it just looked like a far more complete performance.
It’s a win that shows they are ready to kick on now. Bring on the Tests.
Perfect start
Injuries might have put a slight dampener on things, but the All Blacks could not have wished for a better start to their tour of South Africa, especially heading into Test One.
Across their three fixtures so far, Rennie’s side have scored a staggering 142 points (an average of 47 points-per-game) and conceded just 40 (13 points-per-game). Elsewhere, a number of players have really pushed their cases for Test selection, some of which might have been thought of as fringe players at the start of it.
The obvious caveat to their start is the fact it has come against club sides still very much in pre-season with a number of their key players in the Springbok squad ready for the showpiece Tests, but the All Blacks dispatched of their opponents well.
Crucially, they have improved gradually across the series, building on the things and forming a more complete game as a result.
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This will put them in good stead looking towards the Tests, which will be some series.
Attack, attack, attack
If the victory over the Sharks was a sign of things to come, then this win against the Bulls has only solidified that. This All Blacks side, led by Dave Rennie and attack coach Mike Blair, are throwing caution to the wind ball-in-hand and looking to play joue joue, champagne rugby.
That is certainly a simplistic, sweeping generalisation of what is actually a pretty intricate, detailed attack, but the point stands. This All Blacks side are here to play fun rugby, and are making that very clear.
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It was almost rugby’s equivalent of tiki-taka football. Offloads, either in and around the tackle or those basketball-esque, were littered across their game, all done with the aim of shifting the point of contact. Pull-backs from the tip of the forward pod out to a playmaker were also a major part of this plan, again just changing the position of attack to create just a bit more space. That then got the likes of Josh Moorby, Leroy Carter, Rieko Ioane and Beauden Barrett, the key game-changers, playing in pockets of broken field where they could just cause havoc for the Bulls defence.
Elsewhere, Cortez Ratima’s and Kyle Preston’s desire to inject tempo into the play around the breakdown, often distributing as soon as he arrived, just caught the Bulls off-guard and allowed the tourists to play away when their opponents were still getting back into shape. That only works when the players around him are set into shape themselves, which the All Blacks got thanks to the consistent interchanging between both Josh Jacomb and Barrett at first-receiver. It was very clever half-back play, and was almost organic in its functionality.
There’s a saying in rugby that you need to ‘earn the right’ to play wide, mainly by going tight and straight; and the All Blacks certainly did that. Anton Segner again made himself a willing carrier in the ugly areas of the pitch, as he continues to impress on this tour, as did Peter Lakai, Tyrel Lomax and Codie Taylor to name just a few. That combination got the All Blacks consistently over the gainline and consistently on the front-foot, which is exactly when Ratima or Preston would come into their own.
Some handling errors were in there, as you would expect with another new 23-man combination, but let’s just call those creases that need to be ironed out rather than completely removed from their system.
There’s a lot that both Rennie and especially Blair would have liked about this attack.
Quick Fixes
The All Blacks potentially had two main areas to fix up ahead of the Test series: the scrum and their discipline. Tonight, it seemed they had those issues sorted out.
Look, it’s impossible to go through a game without conceding a penalty of any kind, but they conceded far less tonight than in their previous two fixtures this tour, with eight compared to the 16 against the Stormers. Crucially, it was also the areas and the times in which they were, well, not conceded that will please Rennie. Before, the All Blacks would often concede them just as they were getting into scoring position, especially against the Stormers, but that again seemed to have been sorted out and it allowed them to really put a score on. They also conceded them in strings in both previous games, which now also seems a thing of the past.
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The scrum was also much more consistent. Against the Stormers, it was on the back foot for a lot of the game and both front-row units were put under the pump. It was better against the Sharks, but again potentially not consistently dominant across the 80. Tonight, both front-row units seemed to have the better of their opposition, and that will please Rennie no end heading into the Tests.
The final auditions
As you would expect with the final round of auditions before the Springbok Tests get underway, Rennie will be left with some real food for thought.
Segner again left his mark on proceedings with an immensely powerful display on both sides of the ball. Barrett had a much better run of it than against the Stormers in the opening fixture, which crucially came with 15 on his back. Carter carried on from where he left off in the opener, too, grabbing two tries and an assist as well as being arguably their biggest attacking weapon. Jacomb played with real confidence, which comes amid the backdrop of Richie Mo’unga’s return to the All Blacks set-up.
To be perfectly honest, you could go right through the team, the entire 23-man squad for that matter, and say they put themselves in a really good light looking towards Ellis Park. That will leave Rennie pondering, especially with the players he has in the extended touring party, and that sort of horrible headache is exactly what he would have wanted at this stage.