All Black adjustments can spell danger for Boks

The pressure to make the necessary improvements after a loss and the desperation that comes from the reaction to defeat could conspire to make the All Blacks a lot more dangerous in Saturday’s return Castle Lager Rugby Championship test against the Springboks in Cape Town.

The million dollar question as the world’s No 3 ranked team prepares for the game against the world champions at the DHL Stadium is whether they will make any selection adjustments, or rely instead on the players that fronted at Emirates Airlines Park to make the tactical changes perceived as necessary to turn around the 31-27 loss.

With the impact of the Bok bench, the so-called Bomb Squad, such a talking point in New Zealand, there is a chance that the visitors will add weight and physicality to their bench, and may even go for the six/two split between forwards and backs that worked for their opponents a few days ago.

One player likely to return, at least in a bench role, is loose forward Dalton Papali’i, who New Zealand assistant coach Scott Hansen confirmed in a press conference will be in the mix for the selection that will be announced on Thursday.

“At this stage he’s likely to be available for selection,” said Hansen. “There’s a couple of sore men around the camp but most, if not all, are available. Everything is looking pretty positive on that score.”

KIWIS COULD BEEF UP THE BENCH

With former All Black captain Sam Cane having contributed so much to the good parts of the team performance in Johannesburg, particularly on defence, it is likely Papali’i will be playing off the bench.

There is also speculation that the imposing Chiefs No 8 Wallace Sititi could be added to the mix as Ardie Savea’s back-up, while lock Josh Lord is also a sizeable specimen who could help the All Blacks turn around the underwhelming performance from the bench players and fight fire with fire when the Bok impact players come onto the field.

However, the consensus in the Kiwi media appears to be that until the policy of cutting off overseas based players from international selection is changed, which of course wouldn’t happen overnight, the All Blacks just don’t have the depth at their disposal to bring out their own version of the Bomb Squad.

Which means they will focus on adjustments to their game and what they learned in Johannesburg, where they did gain confidence from their periods of dominance in the game.

“We scored four tries in South Africa, essentially we had them on the ropes and we didn’t finish it,” said Hansen.

As we saw in the recent series between the Springboks and Ireland, it is often the case that it is the losing team in the first game of the rubber that makes the biggest step up in the second a week later.

The loss automatically forces deep introspection, and with the team having a better idea about what to expect from the opposition, they often do close the gap.

“When you’re playing a team twice, it’s about the ability to adjust. We’ve faced them, we understand them now. They’ll see opportunities and so do we.”

LATE BOK PRESSURE IS A ROLE REVERSAL

Whether that will happen this week at the DHL Stadium is open to question because it is also true that while the All Blacks lost the game, the South Africans didn’t play nearly as well as they could have.

They also had areas of potential weakness exposed, and in their determination to go one better than 2022 by winning both games against their fiercest rivals, they will be working particularly hard this week too.

What is clear though is that the Ellis Park game introduced a role reversal between the two teams - in the past it was often the Kiwis that finished strongly, such as when they came from behind to win in Pretoria in 2018, and at Soccer City in 2010, thus spoiling the Bok skipper of the time’s celebration of his landmark 100th appearance in the green and gold.

Now the talk in the New Zealand camp is all about how to combat the pressure that the Boks apply at the end of the game, once their reserves have come onto the field.

“When the bench comes on, that’s the pressure moment in a test match,” said Hansen.

“It is in the last quarter when we need smart decisions and accuracy with our technique. We didn’t get that right. It was the result of an accumulation of pressure on us. Ofa Tuʻungafasi (the player yellow carded) came on at a time when whoever got the next penalty in that zone was going to the bin. We spoke about that so we need to be better with our decision-making.”

It was a similar story when the All Blacks went from Wellington to Auckland in the games against Argentina.

The Kiwis lost the game late against the Pumas, but bounced back with a strong performance at Eden Park.

The Boks will be expecting that this week and they will themselves need to be better in several areas, some of them pinpointed by Hansen when he pinpointed where his team did well in the first game.

“When you feel a bit of hurt and pain, you’ve still got to look at the things you did well. There were 60-odd minutes of influencing a test exactly how we needed to. It’s about looking at that and saying ‘well done’ but being honest about where we need to be better.

“There were a lot of positives if you look at our ability to find space, get around the South Africans and our defence was very strong in certain areas of the field. We influenced them around our lineout at times as well.”

One of the All Black ploys in Cape Town might well be to prevent the Boks from being able to set up for attacks from lineouts as often as they did in Johannesburg by not kicking the ball out as much.

The All Black team for Saturday’s game will be named on Thursday.