The Mark Keohane view: All respect to brave and bright All Blacks

These are the All Blacks we did not see in South Africa in 2024 in Johannesburg and Cape Town. These are the qualities we in South Africa have long associated with the mighty All Blacks. It was bloody brilliant to witness.

The Mark Keohane view

One scrum call changed the complexion of a Test match in which the All Blacks looked buried. 

Kudos to the All Blacks, who defied every Springboks scrum attack and power run for 55 minutes, to win a scrum penalty five metres from their own tryline.

And in doing so turned the Test match on its head.

People, we have a Test series on our hands. Buckle in. It is going to get even more brutal than at Ellis Park and even more beautiful for the purist.

Hand speed, heroic defence, use of the width of the pitch and maturity in game management were all aspects that belonged to the All Blacks.

The Boks brought the power but they did not have any precision. The latter was in abundance among these brave All Blacks.

The match ended with 13 Springboks playing 15 All Blacks and it also ended with another Springboks handling error.

Dave Rennie, as Wallabies coach, beat Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber’s world champions three in four match-ups. Rennie has once again done the dirty on Rassie.

The All Blacks had to win at Ellis Park for this series to be competitive and Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry got the result that sets up the series.

Cape Town, in a week’s time, will be on another level when the two teams meet again.

There will be casualties on both sides, but the All Blacks landed the first blows of the series, even though a Boks win looked inevitable when they won three successive penalties from scrums taken five metres from the All Blacks try line between the 50th and 55th minutes.

The momentum was with the Boks, but a decision to take a fourth successive scrum feed aligned with a lengthy delay while lock Eben Etzebeth changed boots put a halt on the expectation.

The longer the wait for Etzebeth to change his boots, the more the irritation grew with the match officials. The consequence was the Boks were penalized and the All Blacks pounced.

They finally got some field position, some attacking ball and the chance to breathe.

And wow, breathe they did. 

All Blacks captain Ardie Savea, right wing Will Jordan and scrumhalf Cam Roigard had not played since New Zealand’s 40-21 thumping of Ireland in the Nations Championship.

The trio were machines, by way of their conditioning, comfortably lasting the pace. Savea was busy, Roigard grew stronger with each quarter and Jordan’s finishing was lethal.

This contrasted with the Boks.

Malcolm Marx uncharacteristically lost the ball in scoring from a lineout maul just before half-time. Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu was held up when over the line and Jasper Wiese and Pieter-Steph du Toit lost the ball while attempting to power their way towards the tryline.

The Boks scrum was all power but this advantage never translated into points. They had 12 entries into the All Blacks 22 metres area and scored just the solitary try.

The All Blacks effectiveness and efficiency was triple this in the attacking red zone.

Ellis Park in the last decade has been a home away from home for the All Blacks, and the 33-16 triumph on Saturday is their fourth win in their last six visits.

I expected the All Blacks to start strong and the Boks to finish the stronger. The opposite happened. The Boks finished with two less players and lost the last quarter 21-0.

Flanker Paul de Villiers, No 8 Wiese and replacement Andre Esterhuizen produced power individual performances but the team collective was sub-standard

Ellis Park’s packed crowd respected the haka with silence but the silence in the final quarter was down to the All Blacks dominating field position and accuracy in their decision-making.

This was an extremely composed collective performance from the All Blacks, whereas the Boks were disjointed at the final whistle.

The match was a contest between one team on the speed ball and the other pounding the heavy bag. All the pre-match hype was about this clash of styles.

Would raw power pulverize speed or would hand speed be reduced to an afterthought because of the raw power?

Well, we got the answer and it was emphatically New Zealand’s hand speed and mental resilience that triumphed.

Mark Keohane’s Sunday Times Keo Uncut columns