Former Manu Samoa No 10 and freelance rugby scribe Campbell Burnes is pumped for the All Blacks’ Greatest Rivalry tour of South Africa in August and September.
Cynics will say it’s not the same as the great, long tours of yesteryear.
Maybe not, but in this day and age where everything is short and fast, the looming seven-match tour of South Africa (with a fourth Test in Baltimore) by the All Blacks still feels like a small nod to the past.
This rivalry was set up by the Boks tours
to these shores in 1921, 1937, 1956, 1965,
1981 and 1994 and the All Blacks in the Republic in 1928, 1949, 1960, 1970, 1976 and 1996. That is not including the short five-match South African sojourn by the 1992 All Blacks after the Boks were readmitted to the international fold following the dismantling of the apartheid policy.
Many Kiwis of a certain age will recall the 1996 series with some fondness. In the first year of professionalism, the All Blacks twice beat the Boks in the inaugural Tri Nations, then edged South Africa 2-1 in the Test series tagged on. They faced each other four times in four weekends. No wonder the All Blacks had nothing left in the tank for the third Test, lost 32-22 to the home side at their Ellis Park citadel.
The image of half the All Blacks’ forward pack lying utterly spent on the Loftus Versfeld turf in Pretoria after heroically manning their defences as the Boks hacked away in the second Tests will live long in the memory. I have never since such exhaustion as John Hart’s men hung on 33-26 to win a first Test series in South Africa, 68 years after their first attempt.
They emulated the feat of the 1937 Springboks, who won their first and only series in New Zealand dispatching the All Blacks five tries to none at Eden Park in the decider, an unprecedented feat.
So to the 2026 tour, which has blown up the Rugby Championship for a year, unfortunate
collateral damage. The Boks and the All Blacks are at Nos 1 and 2 respectively in the world rankings as they enter the July programme, which is the first half of the inaugural Nations Championship.
All things being equal, Dave Rennie’s men should be good enough to win all four tour matches, against the Boks-less Stormers, Sharks, Bulls and Lions. This will be a decent test of Rennie’s second-stringers or those on the fringes of the front-line Test squad, but the four South African franchises will be in their pre-season for the URC. They’ll be up for it physically, but will they be anywhere near their best so early in their season?
If you listened to some media commentary, you would think the Boks are the greatest side this planet has ever seen. They are very good, and superbly coached, but last time I looked they had two bad defeats in 2025, one of those to the All Blacks at Eden Park when they did not fire at all.
The RGR series should be tight. I’m tipping a 2-2 draw. The rugby will, though, be as intense as ever to add to this 105-year rivalry.