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‘The All Blacks don’t play hide and seek’ – Springboks coach states there is no deception about Dave Rennie’s team Springboks assistant coach Mzwandile Stick says that the All Blacks have been open and honest about their style of play and has addressed South Africa’s defensive struggles in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry. Dave Rennie, his assistant coaches and his players have emphasised the desire to keep ball in hand and stretch defences since the former Wallabies boss took over from Scott Robertson earlier this year. It has been a successful approach for the side, who have outscored the Springboks, running in nine tries to the hosts’ four over the opening two Tests of the series. That has raised the question as to whether there is an issue with South Africa’s defence, which was the bedrock of their back-to-back Rugby World Cup victories in 2019 and 2023, when led by Jacques Nienaber. Springboks defensive woes Jerry Flannery has since taken over as the team’s defence coach since 2023 and has had mixed success. Still, Stick believes that the All Blacks have worked hard for the tries over the past 160 minutes and that those scores weren’t system issues but rather great execution by the New Zealanders. “Listen, we don’t want to concede any tries but let’s give compliments to them, the way they are playing you can see they are a team who has confidence and their players they are back at their best,” he told reporters before the third Test in Soweto. “With the new personnel in their coaching staff, you can see they’re starting to believe as a group. Some of the tries they scored are well-earned tries, execution-wise, but we also take pride in how we defend. “I wouldn’t say that I see a problem in our system, but we must give credit when they do well. It’s not like we’re not going to concede any points, and if I use both games as a reference, we also had opportunities in the first game; we had 10 or 11 22-metre entries and only converted one. Then, when they got an opportunity later with those yellow cards in that first game, they buried them, so that’s the nature of this competition. “We talk about the greatest rivalry; I feel like the actions between the four lines are speaking to that. We would like to not concede those tries, but I think some of those tries, when we look at them, are well-executed tries.” Sir Steve Hansen’s damning verdict on Rassie Erasmus’ selection antics: ‘Name it when you can’ All Blacks are clear about how they want to play Stick was then asked whether he was expecting any surprises from the All Blacks for the third Test and his answer was a resounding no. He explained that the New Zealanders haven’t hidden their plans and have openly expressed how they want to play. “I think the message is clear; they don’t play hide and seek,” the former Blitzbok began. “They talk about how they want to play, and when they get to the field, they play exactly that way. We can all see that New Zealand now want to keep ball in hand and if you look at the personnel in their team now, a guy like Peter Lakai is starting, every time he has come on, he brings massive impact for them. “Wallace Sititi is on the bench now, and that shows that, listen, they want more ball players where they can keep the ball in play – Asafo Aumua is also one of the good, strong ball carriers.” Schalk Burger: The ‘either-or’ solution for where the Springboks are ‘still weak’ Different DNAs The clash of styles and DNA has been a hot topic throughout the series and Stick says that the last meeting in South Africa, before the teams jet off to Baltimore for the series finale, will be no different. Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust. “That’s one thing that I like about where we are currently, we always say we’ve got our DNA, the two different things are that they’ve got their one which is keeping the ball in play, they want to put the ball into space and we’ve also got our own way of doing things,” he said. “In Cape Town, when we got opportunities early in the game, and we were converting into points. They tried to get back into the game later on but I think we had already done the damage in a sense of leading by 16 points. I don’t think these guys will change; they’re not going to change – irrespective of the weather conditions, they will still try to enforce their DNA on us; we will also try to do the same.