No team will ever replicate the All Blacks decade of dominance

Rassie Erasmus’s rampant Springboks set the standard in Test rugby in 2025, but nothing will ever compare to the dominance of the All Blacks between 2009 and 2019, writes Mark Keohane, who doubts there will again ever be such an emphatic hold on the No 1 world ranking.

There is no debate. Erasmus, former Boks coach Jacques Nienaber and captain Siya Kolisi have led the Springboks to a Golden Era since winning the World Cup in 2019.

The squad, in a peak for some and in transition for others, has enjoyed their best returns in the past 36 months, with 31 Test wins from their last 37 internationals and a 54-7 win against the Barbarians in Cape Town to start the 2025 Test season.

Successive World Cup titles in 2019 and 2023, a British & Irish Lions series win in 2021, a Castle Rugby Championship title in 2019 and successive Rugby Championship titles in 2024 and 2025 have defined Kolisi’s current Kings of Rugby.

To illustrate just what Kolisi’s Boks have achieved, is to highlight that in the first 23 years of the Tri nations and Rugby Championship, the Boks won the title three times. In the past seven years, they have won it three times.

The 2025 title success was also the first time the Boks had gone back to back in the Rugby Championship, something the 1999 World Cup-winning Wallabies also achieved in 2000 and 2001.

But nothing compares to the All Blacks dominance in the Tri Nations and Rugby Championship, and the All Blacks, from 2009 to 2019 produced results that will never be matched. In that period they played 128 Tests, lost 12, drew four and won 112. In that period they won the World Cup twice, the Bledisloe Cup 11 successive years and won the Tri Nations/Rugby Championship seven times, including winning the Rugby Championship three times on the bounce from 2012, 2013 and 2014, before winning the 2015 World Cup, and then winning the Rugby Championship in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

The All Blacks have won the Tri Nations/Rugby Championship 20 times, the Springboks have six titles and the Wallabies have four. The Pumas have never won the title.

Erasmus, in celebrating the record-breaking Boks, was quick to emphasise that the celebration was about what South Africa was achieving. ‘We know New Zealand set the standard and did it many times.’

Erasmus, after winning the 2019 World Cup, challenged his Boks to find the consistency of the All Blacks from 2009 to 2019 in defining their own legacy. That meant winning 80-plus percent of the games all the time. In the last three seasons they have achieved this and Erasmus continues to challenge the players to chase that golden standard between 2009 and 2019.

All Blacks coach Scott Robertson has 17 wins from 23 since succeeding Ian Foster in 2024, which is a 73.9 percent win record; one that puts him in the top bracket of Test-winning coaches globally, but not among the elite of All Blacks coaches.

New Zealand’s success in consistently winning in the 2000s is a curse to the current crop, who lack the quality of their predecessors, but also are playing at a time when so little separates the top eight to 10 teams in the world rankings.

Erasmus, in his two tenures as head coach, has 35 wins from 48, which puts him at 72.9 percent. It makes him the most successful Boks coach of those who have coached more than 20 Tests.

His 72.9 percent win is substantially better than the Springboks historic win percentage in the Tri Nations/Rugby Championship, which is 47% – and Erasmus and Nienaber’s success since 2019 has improved that average.

The Boks have 69 wins from 147 matches for 333 league points over 30 years (46.9 %). The All Blacks have 107 wins from 149 matches for 521 league points in the same period (71.8%).

The All Blacks also lead the Freedom Cup battle against the Boks 16 to 4 over the last 20 Tri Nations/Rugby Championship tournaments.

There is absolute acknowledgement in New Zealand that the Boks are running hot and are the team to beat in 2025, but the numbers of those All Blacks from 2009 to 2019 were just insane.

In that period the All Blacks played the Boks 24 times and won 17 and drew once, with six of the wins coming in South Africa and two at neutral venues in the 2015 and 2019 RWC.

The AllBlacks home page details some of the staggering numbers of that decade

12: The record for the most consecutive away wins began with a 42-8 victory over Australia on August 20, 2016, in Sydney and ended with an 18-23 loss to Australia in Brisbane on October 20, 2017.

14: In 2013, the All Blacks became the first team in the professional era to win every Test match in a 14-Test calendar year.

18: The All Blacks set a world record by winning 18 consecutive Tier I Test matches from August 15, 2015, to November 5, 2016. This remarkable streak began with a 41-13 victory over Australia at Eden Park and concluded with a 29-40 loss to Ireland in Chicago. England matched this tally between 2015 and 2017.

93: The most wins by a single head coach was achieved by Sir Steve Hansen in 107 Tests between 2011 and 2019. Sir Graham Henry won 88 of 103 Tests between 2004 and 2011. Hansen was an assistant coach for that entire span.

Henry and Hansen combined as head coaches to win 181 Tests in 210 between 2004 and 2019 = 86%

743: World Rugby introduced official weekly world rankings just before the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The All Blacks have held the top position for an unrivalled 743 weeks with eight tenures at one. South Africa is the next-best team with 278 weeks at the top. From November 16, 2009, to August 19, 2019, the All Blacks maintained their number one ranking for 509 consecutive weeks. During this period, they played 128 Tests, achieving 112 wins, 12 losses, and 4 draws. Additionally, from June 14, 2004, to October 22, 2007, the All Blacks played 47 games while ranked as the world number one, winning 41 of those matches.

It could explain why 17 wins in 23 from All Blacks coach Robertson jars with the New Zealand rugby public because the reality is the Springboks and All Blacks both finished the 2025 Rugby Championship with fours wins from six and on 19 league points.

And we are in state of ecstasy and the Kiwis are in mourning.

INCOMPARABLE PIETER-STEPH DU TOIT INSPIRES THE BOKS