Former All Black Murray Mexted hopes that Scott Robertson’s side are able to take South Africa down a peg or two after their impressive 2024.
The Springboks claimed back-to-back Rugby World Cups in 2019 and 2023, but between those two successes, they endured mixed results.
However, that has changed following the triumph in France with Rassie Erasmus’ men enjoying a superb post-World Cup campaign.
They claimed a first Rugby Championship title since 2019, defeating the All Blacks twice along the way, and are just a win over Wales away from going through their northern hemisphere tour unbeaten.
All Blacks’ record
In comparison, New Zealand are still finding their feet under new head coach Robertson and have suffered four defeats out of 13 matches so far.
If you take out the triumphs against Fiji and Japan, they have claimed seven victories versus the top nations in 2024.
Appearing on DSPN, presenter Martin Devlin asked Mexted whether that record was “respectable” or “acceptable” for an All Blacks side and the answer was blunt.
“Of course it’s not,” he said, before Devlin suggested that younger fans don’t believe that having an 80 per cent winning record should be taken for granted.
Mexted then responded: “You can tell those young guys that are saying that to have a look at the crowd, to have a look at how many people are in the grandstand, and ask yourself, ‘why are are all those people coming to watch this wee country from the southern hemisphere that no one’s ever heard of?’
“Rugby’s put New Zealand on the map. Nobody attracts crowds in the northern hemisphere like the All Blacks.”
Springboks at the top
The former number eight then paused for a second and considered the performances and results of the South Africans over the past year.
“The South Africans might be too actually because there’s no doubt about it, they’re definitely climbing the ladder aren’t they? In fact, they’re at the top of the ladder, so we need to sort that out,” he added.
“The South Africans are a bit like us, it doesn’t matter where they play, they’re hard to beat.”
Mexted also warned that the gap could even widen due to the fact that the Boks have added New Zealander Tony Brown to their coaching staff.
“At the moment, they’ve got a very, very clever man driving the whole show and now they’ve got Tony Brown, it’s makes it even worse for us,” he added.
“He’s going to improve their back play out of sight, and they’ve got some athletes those guys. They’re going to get harder and harder, so we have to get better and better.”
