All Blacks have lost none of their aura in South Africa

Nonsense to those who believe the All Blacks in South Africa have lost their aura. Laughable, is my response, to those who think the interest in the All Blacks in South Africa has waned.

The All Blacks are the biggest rugby ticket in South Africa when playing the Springboks.

Ellis Park (62 000), the DHL Stadium in Cape Town (52 000) and the 90 000 big one at the FNB Stadium in Soweto are sold out. Baltimore, USA, host of the fourth and final Test between the two has a capacity of 71 000. It is sold out.

Those are the numbers that matter in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry.

Close to 5000 arrived at the DHL Stadium in Cape Town to welcome the All Blacks.

Then 47 000 paid to watch the All Blacks play the Stormers in the tour opener on a spectacular Friday night in Cape Town.

Durban’s crowd numbered 14,000 in temperatures less than 10 degrees, accompanied by the most unseasonal rain during the build-up to and during the match itself. Close to 25 000 tickets were sold.

Loftus saw 30 000 watch the Bulls host the All Blacks.

These are proper numbers, given the extreme ticket pricing and the tour schedule.

The matches did no favours for South Africa’s United Rugby Championship clubs. South Africa’s rugby public may be one-eyed, partisan, and unapologetically ‘rah rah’ when it comes to their teams.

But they know their rugby and they are no fools.

They knew that the URC teams were in pre-season and that their teams would not be conditioned to play the All Blacks and that their teams would be missing the 40-plus Springboks in the current squad.

They knew that the matches were mismatches and exhibition runs for the All Blacks to test combinations, give players game time and build momentum into the four tests against the Springboks.

No marketing hype could disguise the tour matches. They were billed on the back of those club and provincial matches played in the amateur era when the tour games were a South African player’s ticket into the Test series.

In this instance, in the professional world of one-off Test matches, the tour matches offered little hope of any player going into the Test series.

Stormers flanker Deon Fourie is the exception. Fourie, who turns 40 in a month, was exceptional for 62 minutes against the All Blacks in Cape Town. His performance, on his comeback from injury, combined with Siya Kolisi’s injury when the Boks beat Argentina in Buenos Aires, meant a call-up.

For the rest, it was back to pre-season for the URC, which starts in the last week of September.

Context is everything when assessing the past fortnight.

The crowd attendance at all three matches showcases just how much pulling power the All Blacks have because no one was paying money to see their host club do the improbable. The timing of the matches and the lack of Springboks ensured the results before kick-off.

Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry shareholders, the Springboks and All Blacks, got it so right to formalize a series between the sport’s two greatest rugby nations.

But they got so much wrong in the tour schedule ticket pricing.

The series should have been a three-Test series in South Africa, with the winner determined in South Africa.

The money grab fourth Test in the United States should have been the exhibition match that emphasised the depth available to both coaches.

And the tour games should have spoken to the rugby public who could never afford Test tickets.

The money had to come from the three Test series in South Africa, which was oversubscribed fivefold in Cape Town, double at Ellis Park and sold out in Soweto.

The tour matches were an opportunity to fill the stadiums with those who have a love for rugby and not restricted to those who financially could indulge on a night out.

That they got the tour match pricing wrong isn’t up for discussion.

Equally, that they got the interest in the Test series right is not up for discussion.

Mark Keohane’s Sunday Times Keo Uncut Rugby Columns