Nick Mallett slams ‘scandalous’ World Cup draw as Springboks great claims All Blacks are ‘catching up’ but power will always beat ‘nice’ skills
Springboks back Ethan Hooker is tackle by All Black Anton Lienert-Brown and an inset of Nick Mallett.
The Springboks and All Blacks are on course to meet in next year’s Rugby World Cup quarter-finals, which is ‘scandalous’ according to Nick Mallett.
The inaugural Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry heads to Baltimore this weekend with South Africa leading the series 2-1 after clinching a 29-24 victory over New Zealand in Soweto on Saturday.
While the All Blacks claimed a comfortable win in the first game at Ellis Park, the next two fixtures have been closely fought affairs between the top two ranked teams in the world, and the fact that they could meet in the last eight of the tournament in Australia doesn’t sit right with Mallett and Springboks legend Victor Matfield.
Scandalous Rugby World Cup draw
“It’s a pity for me that we’ll probably face each other in that quarter-final in the World Cup,” Matfield remarked on SuperSport’s Final Whistle presents Side Entry show reviewing the third RGR Test.
Mallett chimed in, adding: “It’s scandalous; it’s not a pity.”
“It’s the two best teams in the world; they should get to a final if they win all the games,” Matfield agreed and added that the All Blacks are continuing to improve under Dave Rennie and are starting to catch up with the Springboks.
“That’s going to be a tough match, but I think they’re catching up – something is happening there with the culture within the group. But they will be tested now. They haven’t gone through losses.
“Will they make changes [for the Baltimore finale]? Will they put some of the older guys back in? Do they really believe in the group, or do they stick with the same guys to try and get a win?
“If they go on the end-of-year tour, lose one more game, then their record’s the same as it was last year with just three losses. For them, it’s all about the players being happy in the camp. Everyone is in the same direction. It looks like they’re a happy crowd. That’s much better.”
Ex-All Black: Greatest Rivalry tour ‘so much more beneficial to us’ than the Springboks
All Blacks are catching up
Rennie took over as head coach following the shock departure of Scott Robertson earlier this year, and while Matfield can see notable improvements in the way New Zealand are performing, he still thinks that the Boks remain ahead of them.
“Last year with Razor there, it was between the Barretts and Ardie – it sounded like there was a little of a breakdown between the Crusaders and other players. So they’re definitely on the right track, but in that second half, it showed they were still a little bit behind us,” he added.
“If we really stand up, we pick our best team, we do have guys that come off the bench that are just as good as our starters and the impact they had. There were a few youngsters too, in Cameron Hanekom and Morne van den Berg; they were outstanding. I think that they are still a little bit behind.”
Mallett believes that the Springboks and All Blacks can beat any other team in the world and that South African fans would be disappointed to lose to anyone other than New Zealand. However, the former head coach sees areas of the All Blacks’ game that they need to improve.
Some of those could be fixed by the return of injured players like Scott Barrett and Tamaiti Williams and possibly the return of lock Brodie Retallick.
“My view is that they are the top two in the world at the moment, and we can beat anyone. In fact, we’d be very disappointed to lose to anyone at the moment, apart from the All Blacks,” Mallett explained.
“So the All Blacks are similar to us but they need personnel in the front row. They need Tamaiti Williams back, who’s a very good loosehead prop – that’ll help them.
“Are they going to get Brodie Retallick back? Are they going to get Scott Barrett back in lock? Will that make a difference? Will it allow Vaa’i to play perhaps that Pieter-Steph du Toit flanker role? So they’ve also got issues that they need to address, but their coaches and their players understand exactly what direction they’re going in.”
Where Dave Rennie’s men are behind the Springboks
He also commented on the contrast in styles and approaches of the two nations. He theorises that Rennie and his staff have accepted that they won’t beat Rassie Erasmus’ men in certain areas of the game, so they have instead decided to invest in their strengths.
“This is what has been absolutely fabulous about this series: we have just stuck to our DNA. When we’re in tough times, we go back to what we’re good at, and we just emphasise it more and more: direct, scrums, mauls, aggressive defence and contestable kicking,” Mallett said.
“They have decided we’re not going to be better than the Springboks at that. So let’s be better at what the Springboks aren’t as good as us and that is creating problems in phase play and playing off transitions, getting the ball however you manage to do it from a lineout. I think George Bower was their best lineout jumper; they threw to the front of the lineout the whole time, and in the scrums, they’ve got to get better personnel. You’re not going to win a World Cup if you’re conceding four or five penalties.”
New Zealand play like Rassie’s Cheetahs
But will the All Blacks’ style of play be enough to win a World Cup? That was the question posed to Matfield who likened New Zealand’s style to Erasmus’ Cheetahs team in the 2000s.
While he says that it is very effective, he believes that a power game will always be more successful than a game plan centered around retaining possession for long spells on attack.
“I’ve played against quite a few teams during my career, and if I think back, a team that probably tried to do that was the Cheetahs. Even under Rassie, when they played this wide-wide and kept the ball from everywhere,” said Matfield.
“Usually they were very successful in the first 30, 35 minutes because the energy is there to get depth, to get in good position, and the skill level is there, but as you get tighter, you may be a metre too flat and all of a sudden, that pressure defence comes into play.
Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust.
“And that’s what we saw in the second half. In the first half, they were brilliant. They were creating, and we were chasing shadows. They had the momentum, and then just before half-time, one big scrum, and you could just see that momentum shift, and the power game came into it.
“All of a sudden, they couldn’t get their depth. They couldn’t use that skill set because the pressure was just too much in their faces. When they needed to defend, they were on their back foot. I feel that if it goes 80 minutes, the power game always beats the nice skill set.”
