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Dave Rennie highlights where All Blacks ‘need to respond’ in Test three and his ‘minimal’ reaction to Springboks changes ‘so close to kick-off’ Dave Rennie has highlighted the areas where his All Blacks must improve in Test match No.3 following Saturday’s loss to the Springboks in the second match of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Series. New Zealand took a one-nil lead when winning the opener in Johannesburg 33-16, but South Africa hit back in Cape Town to win 33-26. Next up in the four-Test series is next Saturday’s third encounter at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, and Rennie was in no doubt after the DHL Stadium defeat what his team needed to focus on. “Continuity is such a big part of our game,” he explained. “I thought we carried better; we cleaned better. The speed of the ball is important for us. Sometimes it’s hard to get gain line against the South Africans early in the match when they have got a big wall in front of you. “And look, Angus (Gardner) is the type of referee who manages the breakdown a lot. He spends a lot of time telling guys to get out and so on and they were able to slow a bit of our ball down too. So, speed of ball is massive for us. “I reckon it’s really small margins…” “We are going to have to deal with their kicking game, which is excellent. We have got a plan and we have got guys coming back, but they are able to sneak around the side and contest and win stuff that gives them a little bit more continuity and puts more pressure on us. “So, if we can deal with that, they kick a lot of ball to you and then you get a lot of opportunities from a counterattack point of view. So, I reckon it’s really small margins. For all the pressure we were under, we lost by seven and what we know is we can create opportunities, we can score and so we just need to be really clinical and deny them opportunities down our end of the field and deal with that ball in the air.” Rennie agreed that his All Blacks kicked more in Test two than in last weekend’s opener and that his players ran more across the field in an effort to find space and apply pressure on the Springboks. “We wanted to kick a little bit more just because there are opportunities to turn them around, find grass and when they kick it back now we have broken the game up a little bit,” he continued. “They are very good when they have got a big wall in front of you, but less so from broken field. So yeah, against teams like South Africa, you want to kick a little bit to break the game up. “Ideally, you’re finding grass and applying pressure, so we might have crabbed across at times, but that’s the sort of stuff that’s allowing us to pull defenders in and beat them on the edge. And when we did that, we scored. So, that’s a positive part of our game.” Springboks: Rassie Erasmus calls for improvement in key area against ‘brilliant’ All Blacks So, too, dealing with the barrage of Springbok up-and-unders? “We put a lot of time into it, I can assure you that. Historically, your guys from the back will come forward and win the ball and then a referee gets involved because anyone in front of that gets penalised. “So us, probably like a lot of other sides, have our wingers or midfielders going back so that they can sort of block the guy out but also catch it, so you don’t get penalised for it. And we managed to get penalised once. “Look, it’s just an area that they are best in the world, and we know there’s a lot more coming next week, but the exciting thing is that when we deal with it, we do get rewards from it, but they’re excellent in that area.” Reflecting on the set-piece, Rennie agreed that lineout would be a work-on but praised referee Gardner for his management of the scrum, an area of play where the All Blacks struggled in the series opener. Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust. “We had a lot of lineouts. We had 18, won 15. A couple of those were a little bit scrappy, but obviously they had a pretty good plan. We’ve got to be able to adjust to how they’re defending our lineout. It’s a work-on. “The scrums were better,” he added. “Angus was pretty strong around setting a mark and then trying to keep the hookers in the same sort of spacing, and if the Springboks moved across further left, then he stopped them. We’ll give a bit of feedback around that. “It’s still a bit of an issue for us because they’re able to walk around and go straight through our tighthead. So, a couple of little technical things that we’ll share again, but look, I thought in the end, the scrums, both teams were able to play off them, and so Angus did a reasonable job there. “If you look at the tries we scored, it’s sitting defenders down and it’s times where we went multiphase and we had a massive opportunity, but they’re very good at jumping out of line and spooking and maybe some of the decision-making we just weren’t quite accurate enough. “So, like I said, we did a lot of good things, but when you play the world champions, you just got to be clinical more often and we left two or three out there which in the end is the difference.” Much was made by fans about Rassie Erasmus’ late confirmation that his three starting front-rowers for South Africa were moving to the replacement bench, with the three named subs promoted to starting roles. Did this change anything for the All Blacks? “No,” Rennie insisted. “We stuck with the team we named. Look, it doesn’t worry me at all. They named their team on Monday. It had no bearing on the team that we named. And so, no drama from my perspective. “I guess when you name the team on Monday, there’s a chance that there’s going to be changes. So, to be fair, look, we took minimal notice of the team on Monday because there’s a chance it’s going to be different on Saturday. Fans call on Cheslin Kolbe to face punishment following ‘punching’ incident in Cape Town “There is the odd player; obviously Cheslin (Kolbe) comes in, but they are both excellent players; it’s not a hell of a lot of difference… So, regardless of who they name on Monday, the game plan’s going to be the same. “We’re well aware of the quality of the team they put out. I’d just start with: I was really proud of the effort from our boys. We were under pump at various times and showed a lot of character and fight to stay in that game and could have stolen the draw right at the end of the game. “So, yeah, look, they started pretty well. We left a couple of opportunities out in the park in the first half and their carry and clean, they spent a lot of time down our end of the field. They got a lot of their high ball stuff back and so that was a big that was a big part of the game. “They were able to slow a bit of our ball down and so we didn’t quite get the sort of continuity that we needed at times, but we created a lot. There are little elements that will need to be better but, you know, we’ll bounce back next week.” Regarding injuries, Rennie highlighted that Will Jordan played on with a first-half neck issue that transferred down to his arm, but his team otherwise came through the game “fine”. He also added that there was no inclination to call up a replacement for Anton Segner after his tour was ended last week by an ankle joint problem. “No, we won’t be bringing in any replacements now that it’s just a couple of Tests left. We got 40 players here. We’ve got plenty of loose forwards. If we were to lose another one, we may consider that, but there’s no plan to replace Anton.” READ MORE: Comment: Pacing, standing crisps and why the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry magnets make sense