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“The Greatest Rivalry”, you say? Well, few could deny that the billing given to the four-test series between the Springboks and All Blacks is apt. With the World Cup a year away, it is these two sides – perhaps with France – who areconsidered the frontrunners to lift the Webb Ellis Cup. Every rugby fan should be looking forward to New Zealand and South Africa locking horns in a test series for the first time since 1996 – and most are. This week I was with a former England international who could barely contain his excitement. This is a series with global appeal, between two of the biggest and most exportable names in the sport. So, for the love of all things holy, someone tell the coaches! A miserable bunch. Mainly South Africa’s, it must be said, but this week has descended into a petty battle of press-room bickering, a phoney war in which the prevailing narrative has been: the team that gets the rub of the green from the officials in Johannesburg this Sunday (NZT) will win. The Springboks’ coaching team, led by the inimitable, ingenious but unlikeable Rassie Erasmus, have been the guiltier party, but the farce began with the All Blacks. Tana Umaga, assistant to Dave Rennie, suggested that South Africa will want to slow the game down this weekend. New Zealand will want to speed it up, Umaga said. Nothing massively untoward there, and most would say that Umaga is probably right. But in the name of fairness and balance, it must be highlighted how the All Blacks are happy with fewer interventions from the TV match official, for the good of flow and speed, until there is a howler against them from the on-field officials. Then the toys come out of the pram. Like naughty schoolchildren pleading innocence in the headmaster’s office, Peyper went on the defensive: not me, sir. He said “not once” had the Springboks received feedback to suggest they had slowed the game down in 2026. Peyper then explained the law as if auditioning to be the next referee who acts out decisions during the match on the stadium’s big screen. All a little odd. Erasmus waded in, with some excuses about the variety of languages spoken in the South African squad – impressive but irrelevant – and ending with a humorous (yes, definitely) gag about how teams can do whatever they like in the 30 seconds before a lineout as long as they are set before the deadline. They could even pray. Good one! The next day, not content with his meddling, Erasmus sent out the expert. Felix Jones, Erasmus’ assistant, who was formerly of the England parish, complained to the media that the South African franchises, during the tour’s warm-up matches, had flagged to the Springboks’ staff tales of New Zealanders “tucking shoulders” and “pulling, lifting of legs” in rucks and mauls. “The word ‘brutal’ follows [Rennie’s] coaching, and there are some amazing elements to how quickly they get their ruck speed going,” Jones added. “But World Rugby’s No 1 priority is safety, so we just want to make sure that physicality and brutality stay within the laws.” There is the temptation to forgive Jones, given his reputation as a kind of master basement tactician and analyst. How could someone whose reputation is akin to that of rugby’s Alan Turing, perhaps watching more match footage than any other human on the planet, be cognisant of the PR and optics battle into which he had been entered? But South Africa know exactly what they are doing. If sacrificing anything for victory is your definition of the pinnacle of human achievement, it is masterful. Deflect all the pressure from your own team and pile it on to the officials, Matthew Carley and his cast. Echoes of poor Nic Berry in the 2021 British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa, when Erasmus’ excoriating video was definitely (wink) not supposed to end up in the hands of the public. What followed? Yes, death threats. Anything for victory ... World Rugby could act. The global governing body should treat pre-match comments made about the officiating in a forthcoming match as seriously as they do protests after it. Coaches and players can be fined for criticising officials after a match but why is there not a similar ruling for beforehand? There has been no criticism from either side (yet), but there are brazen attempts to influence. In many respects, that is worse for the integrity of the sport, trying to affect what is to come (possible) rather than change what has already happened (impossible without flux capacitor). It is pathetic that the build-up to one of the sport’s most hotly anticipated series has been dominated by esoteric law chat and attempts to influence officials. Eyeballs towards the sport, sure, but they would still have come for the rugby anyway. So, controversially, let us stick to that. New Zealand look to have turned a corner under Rennie. They are not yet the side of old, full of aura and mystique, but the All Blacks are a team on the up. As expected, they have so far laid waste to three of the four South African franchises, often emphatically, rotating through a cast of more than 40 players. If depth was seen as a weakness, Rennie has sought to address it immediately. On the field, however, is where the starkest developments have come. New Zealand look like New Zealand again. Their approach is fast, furious and frenetic. They attack from wing to wing rapidly. They carry with conviction. They kick little and pass lots. They are winning rugby matches doing so. In July’s Nations Championship tests, during which New Zealand went unbeaten – though a second-string France ran them close – the All Blacks carried the ball more than any of the 12 nations involved, had the second-most dominant carries, passed the most, offloaded the best, had the second-best ruck speed, and moved the ball wide – more than 30 metres away from the previous breakdown – more often than anyone else. According to Opta, too, only two teams kicked on fewer occasions and only three kicked “to compete” less. Without the ball, no team had a better tackle success percentage and no team turned more tackles into dominant ones than the All Blacks in July. The omens bode well. Whether New Zealand have enough for the two-time world champions on home soil remains to be seen, but there is no greater acid test. Equally, there would be no shame in the All Blacks losing the series as long as they continued on the path that they were on. And what of the Springboks? It does not matter how they play. In the end, it will come down to those pesky tucked shoulders. – Daily Telegraph UK Listen to Elliott Smith’s live commentary on Newstalk ZB Sport and iHeartRadio, or join the Alternative Commentary Collective on iHeartRadio and Radio Hauraki.