Around about the time that Springbok World Cup winner Deon Fourie was saying it in an online press conference, his opposite numbers in the All Black camp were saying the same thing - Friday night’s opening game of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour will be like a test match.
The DHL Stormers host the All Blacks at the DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Friday in the first of four tour matches that will supplement the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series that kicks off in Johannesburg on 22 August.
The Bok/All Black theatre of conflict will shift to the Mother City for the second test on 29 August, which makes Friday an important reconnaissance opportunity for a squad that will feature players who would not have experienced the new Stormers home ground.
Of course, the All Blacks played there in a Castle Lager Rugby Championship game in 2024, but players in the wider squad will not have the familiarity that they would have had were South Africa still part of Super Rugby.
The Stormers are even more of an unknown quantity to the New Zealand group than the ground will be.
The Cape club (they are no longer a franchise) moved across the city from Newlands in the southern suburbs to the Cape Town Stadium in Greenpoint after SA's exit from Super Rugby during the Covid years.
As Fourie said, the All Black jumper will inspire the visitors even if it is not an official test match, and the 2024 World Rugby Breakthrough Player of 2024, Wallace Sititi, agreed with him.
“The midweek games against the franchises (clubs) are games we are treating like test matches,” said Sititi, who was part of the team that lost 18-12 to the Boks at the DHL Stadium two seasons ago.
“We know what the quality (of playing resources) is like here and we will be preparing accordingly.”
WARY OF HOME TEAM’S BIG PACK
Sititi referenced the Stormers pack as a massive threat, in more ways than one, in Friday’s opening game, even though the hosts will be without several key players such as the Bok front row forwards Ntuthuko Mchunu and Zachary Porthen, as well as blindside flank Ben-Jason Dixon, all of whom are currently with the Boks.
“What we do know about them is that they are a big pack. They are a big forward pack that loves to run with the ball, and loves collision battles. We’ve got to respect them up there.”
Sititi said that playing against the Stormers and the other three URC clubs that the All Blacks will face during the tour - they play the ADT Fidelity Lions in the week between the second and third tests - had offered him a chance to get in an experience that he had been denied because of SA’s departure from Super Rugby.
“When I played my first year of Super Rugby, South African teams were no longer in the competition,” said the All Black loose-forward.
“I wouldn’t know what it is like to play against the SA teams, but at the same time, I would love to know (by experiencing it),” he added.
His fellow Chiefs teammate and loose-forward Simon Parker is another who is relishing the chance to pitch his ability against the top SA professional club sides.
“It’s a cool prospect because it is not something I got to do in Super Rugby. Speaking to the guys who have done it, they loved coming here and getting a couple of weeks on tour. I am champing at the bit to get going.”
‘BRANNAS’ LOOKING FORWARD TO ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY
Someone who is also eager for Friday night to come is Fourie, who is known to his mates as ‘Brannas’.
Fourie, who is less than two months away from his 40th birthday, was the de facto Bok leader at the end of the last World Cup final, in which the Boks edged out the All Blacks to claim a second consecutive Rugby World Cup crown.
“I was in a forwards meeting this morning and was asked about the All Blacks,” said Fourie, who in that final in Paris in 2023 had his only experience thus far of playing the New Zealand national team.
“I can’t remember much of those 70-odd minutes I spent on the field, it all went by very quickly. But it is a great opportunity now to get to play against them again. All of us feel very fortunate to get this opportunity to play one game against the All Blacks, and 80 to 90 percent of the team that plays on Friday might never get the chance again. It has been 50 years since this club (they were then Western Province in 1976) got to play the All Blacks so this is a massive opportunity.
“We’re expecting it to be like a test match. For players who never get to play test rugby, this will be the taste of what it would be like. I think every player in All Black squad is a quality player and they will be using this first game to get the momentum going ahead of the first test against the Boks.
“There will be players wanting to put their hands up to get into the team for the Bok games. So they will be going all out against us to show their coach Dave Rennie that they have what it takes to play in the test matches.”