There has been an interesting sub-text that has been coming out of the Springbok press conferences that may be indicative of a wariness within the camp to the atmospheric conditions on the highveld that may favour them against other opponents but not against the Kiwis.
Lock Lood de Jager spoke about how he and his teammates “sucking diesel” at stages of the Mbombela test and admitted that as much as the All Black players may be missing the regular contact with aspects of the South African playing style they used to get in Super Rugby, so the Boks may be missing the New Zealand tempo and the width the Kiwis bring to their game.
Then Duane Vermeulen spoke of the extra challenge posed by playing his comeback game after two months on the sidelines at altitude. He was followed by centre Damian de Allende, who perhaps unwittingly pointed out something that is worth thinking about and which is borne out by the All Blacks record in Gauteng since the turn of the millennium: the highveld conditions do help the All Black game.
“It is quite dry up here, so the All Blacks won’t disappoint us on on Saturday. Not that I am saying they disappointed us at Mbombela, but the ball was quite greasy there so it was tough for them when they were chasing the game,” said the Bok centre.
“They are a highly skilled and world class team, and when their passes stick, they can be brilliant. If I was a rugby supporter, I’d love to watch the rugby that they play.”
The All Black passes didn’t stick last week, which was why some 50/50 moments that on another day could have led to dangerous situations for the Boks went against them. The greasy ball might have accounted for that almost as much as the high lining, aggressive and combative Bok defensive system.
ALTITUDE NOT THE ALLY IT IS AGAINST OTHER OPPONENTS
There has long been a perception that the Boks are favoured by playing the All Blacks at altitude. At one stage there were many who were calling for the Boks to always play their most feared and respected opponents in Johannesburg. But while the Bok advantage at altitude might be real against the Wallabies, who have a long history of failure in Gauteng, and is also the case against Ireland, who fell apart in the second half of the Johannesburg test in 2016, England who struggled after halftime at the same venue in 2018, and Wales who surrendered a big lead in Pretoria more recently, history suggests the rarified air is not a hindrance to the All Blacks.
Indeed, if you look at how often they have won games late up here, it may well be that it favours their high tempo game in the sense that it tires out the hosts and allows their skill set to flourish. You don’t have to go back to far to find an example of a great All Black comeback at altitude - they did it the last time they played on the highveld, coming back from a big deficit to pip the Boks 32-30 at Loftus in 2018.
One of their most famous Houdini acts before that came at Soccer City in what was marketed as a Soweto test in 2010. It was the day legendary World Cup winning Bok captain John Smit was playing his 100th test. The Boks were always ahead and looked like they had the game won, or at worst could be held to a draw. Until the Kiwis scored two tries in the space of as many minutes with effectively their last two plays of the game.
In 2013, when Bok coach Heyneke Meyer elected to go toe to toe with the All Blacks’ running game because his team needed to win with a bonus point to win the Rugby Championship, it was a similar story. The Boks were well in it until the last quarter and then just ran out of puff in the last quarter against the quick, wide ranging game of the All Blacks.
The visitors sealed a similar kind of come from behind win at Emirates Airlines Park in 2015, and even the year before that, when the Boks broke a long sequence of failure against the visitors, they found themselves relinquishing what at the halfway point had been a handy lead before Pat Lambie’s after the hooter penalty won it for them.
Since 2000, when Nick Mallett’s team won well but was a lot further ahead with 20 minutes to go than the eventual six point winning margin, it has been New Zealand that has got the better of the battles between the old foe on the highveld. Jake White’s side won comfortably in 2004, but in 10 matches this century in Guateng, the All Blacks have won seven and lost just three.
Why the All Blacks might enjoy the highveld was well summed up by their then assistant coach Robbie Deans in the post-match press conference to the 2003 52-16 humiliation of Rudolf Straeuli’s Boks at Loftus.
“We played on a dry field and we played in daylight, I’ve always said you get your best rugby in those conditions,” said Deans and his head coach John Mitchell concurred that the All Blacks just loved the fast paced surfaces and dry conditions of Pretoria and Johannesburg.
MARX RETURN TO BOMB SQUAD LOOKS TACTICAL
Current Bok head coach Jacques Nienaber might well have made his selection for Saturday’s game around his wariness of how the All Blacks could run his team ragged on the highveld. Malcolm Marx continues on the bench even after the injury that has ruled out the initial starting hooker Bongi Mbonambi, a move that looks designed to have Marx on the field to slow All Black ball down in the period where historically they’ve had more energy than the Boks at altitude.
There is though a caveat to all of this and which should temper any Kiwi optimism, and it comes by way of another sub-text from this week - the impact that SA’s absence from Super Rugby may have on the All Black familiarity with the local playing style. That could extend to the climatic conditions.
New Zealand players used to play at least one franchise game at altitude every year outside of any international game. It did trip up the Hurricanes in the 2016 Super Rugby semifinal against the Emirates Lions at Ellis Park, where their fast start left them blowing air bubbles, but generally the Kiwi sides became quite good at managing the conditions.
There won’t be many of the current All Black team though that has played at altitude in the last four years so it is going to be interesting to see how they handle what has gone back to becoming the alien challenge it was when Sean Fitzpatrick brought his All Blacks here for the first post-isolation Bok test at Ellis Park in 1992. Even though they fell marginally short, that day it was definitely the Boks who dominated the last quarter.
South Africa/New Zealand results in Gauteng this century
2000: South Africa 46 New Zealand 20 (Johannesburg)
2003: South Africa 16 New Zealand 52 (Pretoria)
2004: South Africa 40 New Zealand 26 (Johannesburg)
2006: South Africa 26 New Zealand 45 (Pretoria)
2010: South Africa 22 New Zealand 29 (Soweto)
2012: South Africa 16 New Zealand 32 (Soweto)
2013: South Africa 27 New Zealand 38 (Johannesburg)
2014: South Africa 27 New Zealand 25 (Johannesburg)
2015: South Africa 20 New Zealand 27 (Johannesburg)
2018: South Africa 30 New Zealand 32 (Pretoria)