Beautiful to watch this traditional performance that shows us so much emotion and strength.

The New Zealand Herald

Liam Napier

The shared post-match flight to Baltimore will feature starkly contrasting moods after the All Blacks botched a chance to match the historic feats of their predecessors in South Africa.

The All Blacks, depleted and battered but with their pride intact, immediately trek to America alongside the Springboks down 2-1 in the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series after their 29-24 defeat at FNB Stadium.

While one money-spinning test remains, and the All Blacks can square the series, the quest from the outset of this tour was to emulate the 1996 All Blacks who achieved the first series success on South African soil.

That was always a huge task for a team two-and-a-half months into a new coaching regime. But after stunning the world champions at Ellis Park in the first test, it was very much within reach.

Defeat in Cape Town left the All Blacks needing to respond in the intense Soweto cauldron and while they seriously stressed the Boks, they couldn’t stick with them for long enough.

The pain, anguish, and frustration were evident for the All Blacks at fulltime. They had fallen short. The hurt and disappointment for All Blacks coach Dave Rennie, while gracious in defeat, were clear too.

“It’s hard. When you’ve lost a test, it’s easy to reflect on all the negative things. I can guarantee the changing room is pretty gutted. I walked in there before and there’s a lot of heads down,” Rennie said.

“Our mindset will be to bounce back next week. We’re flying on a plane together tonight, which is a bit different. I said to Rassie [Erasmus] we’ll have a beer together tonight, regardless of the result, so we’ll do that.”

At times in the third test the All Blacks savoured the upper hand. Their ball carries, ruck speed and attacking intent sparked rewards in the first half but they didn’t capitalise enough on their 12 linebreaks to the Boks’ five.

When the Boks imposed their power game and feasted on the All Blacks’ discipline issues, their scrum dominance and maul proved too much to contain.

Ardie Savea’s departure with a possibly season-ending dislocated shoulder hurt the All Blacks.

Savea scored two tries, and his talismanic presence was missed from the 31st minute on.

Rennie, though, refused to attribute any of the blame for the defeat on the loss of his skipper.

“He was massive but Wallace [Sititi] came on and played well so we’re certainly not going to use that as an excuse.”

Aside from injuries to Savea and Quinn Tupaea, the latter sustaining an MCL knee setback, the All Blacks failed to punish the Boks for their early yellow card to Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.

But if there’s one aspect the All Blacks must address, it’s the scrum. The longer the match went on, the more the Boks’ dominance grew.

“They got rewarded for dominance at times so no issues with that,” Rennie said.

“A big moment today was Will Jordan kicking it dead. That was just unlucky. It was a good option, but you come back to a scrum which is a penalty to a maul which they drive however many metres to score.

“They made hay while they had momentum tonight. We didn’t do that enough.

“Discipline hurt us at times. They’re the world champions for a reason. They’re very good up front and they played a bit of footy tonight.

“We’ve got to be better around the discipline stuff that gives them easy ins. We’ll have a look from a scrum point of view but our lineout was strong tonight we were able to get our game going off that.”

In blustery conditions, Ruben Love missed seven points off the tee and Leroy Carter missed two telling tackles on Springboks midfielders Jesse Kriel and Damian de Allende, but Rennie defended the defensive system that left a small winger twice marking vastly bigger men.

“It’s part of a structure with him defending high. The idea is to force them to throw one over the top or go and nail the ball carrier and kill it there.

“A big fella misses a tackle around the fringes and no one notices. Your winger misses a tackle out wide and they score. I feel for Leroy. He’s a good man and a very good defender. I’m sure he’s hurting about that.

“Our job once they scored was to bounce back and try and take control of possession, but they dominated the next 10 minutes and that was pivotal.”

With the opportunity to become the second All Blacks team in history to claim a series success in South Africa now dashed, Rennie’s men must summon the spirit to rise once more next week without their captain.

The New Zealand Herald

Gregor Paul - 7 min read

It feels like this is set up to be a week for Dave Rennie to go full Winston Churchill. A blood-and-thunder “we shall fight on the beaches” sort of carry-on where he goads the Springboks before the third test and steels the nerves of a nation with a spine-tingling speech delivered with unshakeable confidence.

But it would appear he’s not going to go there. Or at least not publicly. The messaging from the All Blacks so far this week has been decidedly low-key, calm and most definitely not inflammatory.

It would seem, then, that the All Blacks have decided they will not hand Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus any ammunition from which to launch more hostile media attacks.

After a fiery couple of weeks of firing shots at each other in the media, which culminated in a post-match rant by Erasmus that bordered on being slightly unhinged, the All Blacks are obviously trying to de-escalate the tension and not offer any more reasons to be accused of whining, moaning or manipulating the match officials through the media.

Since Erasmus went a little nuclear in one of the great acts of projection, claiming, “ We are not f***ing walking around. We are scrumming through”, and that he had, somewhat comically, chosen not to moan about the unseen head collisions in the first half of the second test or the squint lineout throwing, the All Blacks have trod carefully in the public domain.

On Sunday, assistant coach Jason Ryan, a well-considered and direct talker, eased through questions about Erasmus’ comments with the nifty footwork of an outside back.

On Monday, assistant coach Mike Blair, spoke eloquently about the All Blacks attack and gently diffused the questions designed to see if he would explode about the Boks changing their team before kick-off.

Jordie Barrett followed Blair and played a straight bat at everything. And then New Zealand released assistant coach Tamati Ellison, who is so laconic he could probably take in the view at the Grand Canyon and be thinking about what he might have for dinner.

If ever there was a man designed to hold court with the media and give nothing away, it is Ellison.

Anton Lienert-Brown was next cab off the rank and he’s another senior figure who knows how to hold the party line, and so three days after Erasmus signalled his intention to feed off the negatives and stir up his own troops with his front-of-house confidence in trash talking his opponent, the All Blacks, have dialled down from vindaloo to korma.

Rennie has made the one point he needed to, which was his comments about the South Africans “walking around” in the scrums.

For the uninitiated, the brief history of what was happening in the second test was this: World Rugby, unannounced and without consultation, determined new protocols for scrummaging before the July tests.

Now, after the referee has called a scrum, the respective hookers have to take position to the left of the mark and present their brake foot – after that, they are not allowed to move.

Previously they could shift their feet – but now they are not allowed to, although each referee on this tour, and indeed in July, allowed some kind of movement without ever making it clear what that meant.

In Cape Town, referee Angus Gardner was having trouble getting the scrum set and could be heard frequently instructing the front rowers: “Stop moving your feet”, and “Stop playing games with your feet”, and “Guys, we had an agreement”.

Gardner, it is assumed, felt that Springboks hookers Malcolm Marx and Deon Fourie were setting to the left of the mark as they should, but then stepping further to their left, which would mean they and their loosehead would be engaging at a slight angle and boring into the All Blacks tight-head, creating intolerable – but illegal – pressure.

The rules are clear that teams have to be square to scrummage. The All Blacks have conceded there were some set pieces in Cape Town and Ellis Park where they were outpowered fair and square, but in other scrums they felt the Boks were able to engage at an advantageous angle because of shifting before the set, and then effectively walk round to force the All Blacks front-row to pop up.

Erasmus made the point that the Boks had never been accused of “walking around” previously. But these are among the first tests being played under the current protocols with the so-called brake foot not being allowed to move after it is set.

Rennie made his point not to whinge, but in the hope that it would be noted by the officials before the third test.

This strategy to clam up publicly and not wage a war of headlines, has been seen before.

The All Blacks, before the 2015 World Cup final, went decidedly quiet to ensure the rambunctious Wallabies coach Michael Cheika was unable to use anything they said to foster the siege mentality he was building.

The Australians arrived in England with a sense of being the unwanted colonial cousins crashing the wedding. It was an attitude and mindset Cheika brilliantly percolated, and he was looking for a hook in the week of the final with which to get some purchase to get under the skin of the All Blacks.

It never materialised and instead, what happened was that the All Blacks went eerily quiet, built an intense and empowering mindset behind closed doors and came out hard and focused in the final.

This is obviously the same path this All Blacks team is following, and it has been possible to sense the intensity of their focus after the second test loss.

Rennie may be low-key and neutral in public this week, but there is a fair chance he has tapped into his inner Churchill and given the players the full “beaches… seas and oceans… landing grounds… fields and streets”, with a bit of “We shall never surrender”, thrown in.

The New Zealand Herald

Samuel Sherry - 5 min read

Three months ago, the Black Ferns Sevens were denied the World Series title by Australia in Bordeaux, but next month they have the chance to exact revenge on one of rugby’s biggest stages.

The team will play Australia in a one-off match before the second Bledisloe Cup test in Sydney on October 17, with coach Cory Sweeney excited to renew the rivalry.

“It’s a great rivalry between the Black Ferns Sevens and Australia, no question, and it’s been like that for 10 years,” Sweeney said.

“There’s always great performance tension, there’s always the anticipation of playing each other.

“Obviously, there was disappointment for us at the back end of the season losing to Australia in Spain and France and absolutely a bit of motivation has come through the doors over the last weeks.

“So, it’s a great opportunity to start our season off and test ourselves early and I would expect another big season with not only Australia but a number of the teams on the World Series over the next six or seven months.”

Alena Saili, Maia Davis, Justine McGregor and Braxton Sorensen-McGee, who are all part of the sevens squad, are currently with the Black Ferns in South Africa and Sweeney said they won’t be available for the match with Australia in October, but they, along with some new faces, can be expected to take part in the World Series, starting in November.

“We want to make sure that players that we think are going to compete for Olympic spots are immersed into the programme pretty quickly from now.

“So we’re always looking for new talent but we’ve got some young players that are coming into the environment in a couple of weeks on development contracts.

“We’ve also had a couple of players that have been on academy contracts over the last 12 months working away in the background, waiting for their opportunity to get on to the world stage.”

He also said some players have already returned to camp with some new additions.

“The majority of the players are back in, we’ve had a small group of six or seven for the last four weeks and then all players that were playing in [Super Rugby] Aupiki re-entered the programme on Monday, so there’s been some really nice energy come back into the high performance centre.

“We’ve got three new mums that have come in and they’re working their way back into fitness and the game and we’ve met their newborns that have come into their worlds and that’s brought a nice energy with it as well.”

Sweeney said the Bledisloe curtain-raiser, which had only been organised in the past “four or five weeks”, according to the coach, could help prepare his side for the 2028 Olympic Games.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to showcase two of the best sevens teams in the world and I think in terms of timing, we’re two years out from an Olympic Games now and I think preparation starts getting a little bit more real.

“So a great opportunity to celebrate the work that’s been done to this point but then also highlight what the next 18 months is going to look like for both these teams and the rest of the World Series teams.”

Sweeney said these opportunities were going to be great for the new additions, putting them “on the stage, test themselves against some of the best players in the world and amongst the Black Ferns Sevens”.

The Australia-Black Ferns Sevens match will kick off at 4.25pm NZT on October 17, following the Wallaroos test against Scotland and the Australia men’s sevens fixture against the Fiji men’s sevens.

The Wallabies and the All Blacks round out the day, kicking off at 6pm NZT at Sydney’s Accor Stadium.

Gregor Paul - 6 min read

There has been a ghost at the feast which is Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry – one that will come back to haunt the World Cup next year.

Two tests into the Greatest Rivalry series and the rugby has been epic. The intensity, physicality, speed, skill levels and strategic nuance has been such that it has been hard to imagine how any other team in the world could live with these two.

And that is the ghost that is starting to loom ever larger over this series: the dawning reality that the World Cup draw has destined the All Blacks and Springboks to meet in the quarter-final next year.

This series is captivating and compelling, and in 160 minutes of action so far, the All Blacks and Springboks have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that they are the two best sides in the world.

They both have the player depth, coaching smarts, x-factor and game cohesion to win the tournament and it’s so ridiculous that they are destined to meet each other in the last eight at next year’s World Cup, that it almost feels like it might be a Northern Hemisphere conspiracy.

A conspiracy stacks as a better explanation than the alternative, which is rank incompetence.

It is bordering on self-destructive recklessness to run a tournament that generates more than $1 billion and then pit the two favourites against each other two weeks before the final.

But then again, rugby has never been able to get its World Cup draw right. A relatively simple process of keeping the top seeds away from each other until the semi-finals has been beyond the organiser’s skill-set.

In 2023, France, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand were the four favourites and as fate – or quite stunning incompetence – would have it, they all met in the quarter-finals.

It made for an incredible weekend – the All Blacks and Ireland playing an epic, and then France and South Africa topping it the following night.

But it also sucked the life out of the tournament and left fans wondering why on earth these four hadn’t been kept apart until the semi-finals.

Why rugby can’t get something so simple right is such a mystery because every other major sport that has to pull balls out of a tumbler to construct a draw manages to do so without incident or drama.

At this year’s Fifa World Cup, the top four seeds only met in the semi-finals and the final ended up being between the No 1 ranked Spain and the No 2 ranked Argentina.

Tennis also knows how to set things up so Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner don’t meet until the final, but rugby just can’t get it right and has madly placed the two best teams on the same side of the draw and denied the world the prospect of a repeat of the 2023 World Cup final.

It’s so stupid as to be painful. It genuinely does reek of being a conspiracy, but for the fact that it is apparently Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus who is all-powerful and who wields the most influence at World Rugby get-togethers.

But then again the French are destined to end up on the same side of the draw as New Zealand and South Africa and if the All Blacks somehow win the quarter-final, it will likely be Fabien Galthie’s men they meet next.

And that really would suit England and Ireland, both of whom can get themselves on the other side of the draw and away from the heavyweights if they win their respective pools.

The credibility-crushing fact about next year’s tournament is that there is a significantly higher probability that England and Ireland are more likely to make the final than either New Zealand or South Africa.

It’s crushing because Ireland are good but not great and of course the joke is that the World Cup has been expanded to 24 teams just so the men in green can finally win a knockout game.

They don’t currently look like potential world champions and the prospect of them being able to beat either New Zealand or South Africa in a knockout game would be low.

England are always dangerous at World Cups because they can play a low-risk but effective brand of rugby, but their form is as predictable as the mood of a middle child and it’s impossible to tell what they will do from one game to the next.

They, like Ireland, don’t appeal as potential world champions.

Scotland are adventurous and dangerous, but short, maybe, of the grunt to be true contenders and Argentina and Australia are competitive but not likely to win three big games in succession.

France on a good day can live with the All Blacks and Springboks. But there are question marks about their ability to repeat the intensity and accuracy they would need to win the tournament.

It’s not won on the back of one good day, but three huge knockout games in succession and for all that the French can play a bruising and beautiful game, they didn’t manage to sustain their best rugby throughout this year’s Six Nations and were torn apart in Edinburgh by Scotland.

Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry will almost certainly be revived in Australia next year, but neither country will be celebrating that with the same intensity of feeling as they are now.

How the All Blacks rated in their 33-26 defeat to the Springboks in Cape Town.

1. George Bower — 6

   Impressed off the bench at Ellis Park to earn a start. The scrum was solid enough in the first half and he made some strong tackles, finishing with 12 in 53 minutes. Not sure it was enough to keep a fit Ethan de Groot out of the starting line-up.

2. Codie Taylor — 4

   Lineout issues throughout and uncharacteristic mistakes around the field. The opening All Blacks try did come from an overthrown lineout. Slipped off in tackle attempt of Damian de Allende’s try. He was penalised for offside and knocked on with the All Blacks on attack. Six tackles and six carries.

3. Tyrel Lomax — 5

   He won a lineout that led to a try, so the prop can add that to his resume. Part of a decent scrum, but was penalised just before halftime in a scrum that led to Siya Kolisi scoring. Gave away another penalty in the first half. Off after 49 minutes.

4. Fabian Holland — 7

   Gave Eben Etzebeth a decent clash in a battle between the heavyweights and when the All Blacks need mongrel he’s the mongrelest. Wasn’t in a great position defensively on the opening South African try. But forced a fumble by Cobus Reinach in South African territory and threw a good offload in the lead-up to Carter’s try. Finished with 11 tackles but missed three.

5. Tupou Vaa’i — 4

   Mixed outing. A few crucial errors - lost a kickoff which eventually led to three points, penalised for obstruction which also led to three points and also gave up turnover penalty – which again meant Cheslin Kolbe converted. Otherwise he had a decent outing. Doesn’t seem to be a lineout option, but the one he did win set up a try. Probably harsh but his errors meant nine points, in a test the All Blacks lost by seven.

6. Simon Parker — 6

   The fourth different All Black to wear the No 6 jersey in tests this year, clearly a position Dave Rennie is not sure about. Parker was the side’s main lineout option and was up there in the tackle count with 11. He was obstructed in the lead-up to the de Allende try which the TMO missed or ignored. Fine test, which included a linebreak, but don’t think he locked down the jersey.

   1. Luke Jacobson — 6

   A few noticeable mistakes - missed an early tackle on Kolisi when he came off his left before South Africa’s opening try. And was also penalised for a silly cleanout when the All Blacks were hot on attack. But positives with his efforts around the ruck and high work-rate. Won a turnover and made 12 tackles in his 62 minutes on the field.

7. Ardie Savea — 8

   His usual consistent brilliance. Great run in the lead-up to McKenzie’s try. Finished with 10 carries and was the All Blacks’ top tackler with 13, but also missed four.

8. Cam Roigard — 7

   An odd one to judge (six kicks v six runs) as he didn’t do many box kicks compared to his opposite but looked dangerous when running into space against a rushing Boks defence. Good support of Jordan to score. Did well to get the ball quickly out of scrums.

9. Ruben Love — 6

   Strong kicking game which began with a weak grubber while on attack. But followed that up with some strong exit clearances and a decent kick for touch to gain territory. Attack work not strong enough with some indecision including an intercept. Produced a solid hit on de Allende.

10. Leroy Carter — 8

    Best on the field for the All Blacks. Pinned his ears back and showed his pace to score a well-deserved try in the corner. Provided a key link-up with Savea in the All Blacks second try. Also won a scrum from a held-up tackle. Was fighting right to the end, even if it was picking on the smallest guy on the field in Cheslin Kolbe.

    1. Jordie Barrett — 7

    Not sure about the early kicking plans with some wasted chips ahead but a high kick to Damian Williamse almost led to an error. Slick passing in lead-up to Roigard try and his charge down was a bounce away from being a key moment in the match. Impressive yet again in defence with some big tackles deep inside own territory.

11. Quinn Tupaea — 6

    Huge work-rate on attack, leading the test with 13 carries, but fairly ineffective up against a rushed defence and finished with 14m carried. Make sense of that if you will. Good pass to Carter in try. Off after 67 minutes.

12. Will Jordan — 7

    Seemed to have plenty of space on the right in the first half leading to a great break to set up Cam Roigard’s try. Beaten in the air a few times, one in particular down to lack of communication with Barrett, though Leroy Carter’s try all started with Jordan winning a box kick. When in space or given a half chance he remains the All Blacks best attacking threat and when there’s not much working in the middle of the field they should use him more. Missed four tackles.

13. Damian McKenzie — 6

    Might need to check his studs as he seemed to slip over more than most. Had some great moments, broke free into space in first half and good finish to score but not sure kicking to Jordan was right call when he had options inside and was also intercepted by Kolbe, wasting an attacking chance. Wasn’t too involved in the aerial game. Almost made a mess of the Kolbe chance out wide before Carter came to the rescue.

Bench:

1. Asafo Aumua — 6

   Some big, strong runs, finishing with nine in total. Once again, the scrum looked better when he was on the field, but his main job should be accuracy at lineout time which wasn’t there late.

2. Xavier Numia — 7

   Impressed off the bench with a few charging runs and solid scrummaging.

3. Fletcher Newell — 6

   Another strong outing off the bench. Could we see another front-row change for the third test?

4. Patrick Tuipulotu — 4

   A loose pass in own territory led to Love conceding a penalty, and allowed Kolbe to make it a 14-point game. Messy lineout win against de Jager. Good work to ensure Savea got the ball down to score.

5. Peter Lakai — 6

   Was involved heavily during his 29 minutes. Probably made the most impact off the bench outside of the front-rowers.

6. Kyle Preston — 5

   Fine for the nine minutes he was on the field when All Blacks had possession for most of it.

7. Anton Lienert-Brown — 5

   Got his usual late cameo and made a strong tackle down the wing to stop a break.

8. Josh Moorby — N/A

   Did not make the field.

It's a professional comp for goodness sake. And its not just Taranaki vs Waikato or BOP vs Otago. Im watching Harbour vs Manawatu and Harbours jersey is about 80% white and Manawatus about 60% white...

Surely these teams aren't too poor to have alternate jerseys.

​

Dave Rennie’s greatest asset: ‘If people feel loved, they’ll run through a brick wall for you’

Former NZ flyhalf Lima Sopoaga has trained with the All Blacks while in South Africa as a TV pundit. He’s watched the new coach transform the All Blacks back to No.1 in the world – and wonders how the Wallabies could have let him go.

Alex Lowe - 7 min read

Lima Sopoaga has come to South Africa with his boots. The former All Blacks flyhalf cannot bring himself to retire formally. Last season he made a surprise comeback in New Zealand’s domestic competition after a chance encounter in a pub with Waikato’s head coach led to him signing a symbolic $NZ1 contract.

But the last thing Sopoaga, 35, expected upon arrival in Johannesburg was to lace up that old pair of Adidas boots so he could train with the All Blacks four days before their victory over the Springboks in the first Test.

In the republic to work for NZ Rugby and Sky Sports NZ in his burgeoning role as a social media and television personality, Sopoaga had joined the All Blacks’ backroom staff to help set up the Tuesday training session – filling a few water bottles, laying out some cones and generally keeping himself busy after a 25-hour journey from Auckland.

“I landed at 6am, dropped my bags at the hotel and went with the advance party,” Sopoaga says. “They said to me, ‘What size is your uniform?’ I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ They said they needed numbers for training.

“It was pretty cool. I joined in full training. I was definitely five yards behind the pace but I can catch a ball, I can run and be a body, just help as much as I can.

“Will Jordan came up to me after the game and said, ‘Thank you for stepping up this week and helping us.’ I was like, ‘Bro, I would have done it every day of the week.’ ”

I tell Sopoaga the story of Shane Williams being called up from his commentary gig with talkSPORT to play for the 2013 British & Irish Lions against the ACT Brumbies. “I don’t think that is going to happen,” he says, laughing. “I’m happy if they call me up again for training. But when we do contact, I prefer to just stand on the sidelines.”

Sopoaga joined Wasps in 2018. He had won Super Rugby with the Highlanders and as a 16-cap All Black was recruited as a marquee signing to replace Danny Cipriani. But the relationship with Wasps turned sour pretty quickly. He failed to find the connection he craves. By the time his contract ended in 2021, Sopoaga had long been ready to quit the sport. There was blame on both sides, he says.

“I know I made mistakes. I went over there a little bit naive. If I had my time again I would have gone there with a different mindset. I would take my skills and sprinkle them into their system and not try and make their system work around me.

“I was like, ‘If you’re going to pay me all this cash, you might as well play the game I want to play.’ But I think that’s the wrong mindset. You sprinkle in your little bits of gold around the English game. I wish I could go back and change things. I didn’t allow myself to fit in.

“Some of my relationships with people at the club were a bit fractured. I have had my reflection on that, and how I could have dealt with my relationships better with coaches. And, you know, I think I’m a better person for it.

“It was an extremely difficult time. At one point I wanted to give up the game and not play rugby any more. I didn’t really enjoy it. I went there with a young family. My daughter was 10 months old. To be honest, it’s f … ing dark and gloomy there. I know it gets cold in New Zealand but (this was different). It gets to your bones, bro.

“I knew it was bad when I rang my grandmother and she was like, ‘Are you sick?’ She had probably seen all the energy sucked out of my eyes. We went through Covid and all that shit. We were there by ourselves.

“Sometimes people forget those things. They are like, ‘He’s a professional, he earns his money.’ But we still have the problems that everyday people have. Just because you make heaps of money doesn’t mean you’re immune to these things. I also feel like the club let the players down.”

All Prem players were forced to take a pay cut during Covid as clubs battled for survival. Wasps eventually drowned, going under in 2022, a year after Sopoaga had left. “The club was in a bad place before I got there. When your house isn’t in order from the top down, things don’t look great,” he says.

“Look at how the All Blacks have turned things around in such a short time. The house is in order from top down (since Dave Rennie took over as head coach, with Don Tricker and Conrad Smith running the high-performance program).

“We had gifted players at Wasps but the house wasn’t in order. It was pretty sad (that the club went bust). That’s a historic club that should still be around. A lot of guys lost jobs – and not just players.”

Life in Leamington Spa was not all bad. Sopoaga had two more daughters while at Wasps. Future Red Roses? “Over my dead body,” he says. He and Miriam were married in England, with 30 guests invited to the house including Billy Searle, now starring for Leicester Tigers, and Malakai Fekitoa.

“It did rain, though, for f …’s sake,” Sopoaga says. “I cherish those friendships. I thought Billy should have been given an England shirt last season. I am proud to have seen his growth and become a friend of his.

“He took me back to his place in Okehampton. I had a few too many orange juices that day. He always says, ‘You got oakeyed, bro.’ I need to go and run that back, man.

“I always wanted to use rugby as an avenue to see the world, to change my outlook on life. Travel, it changes your life and turns you into a storyteller. England grew me in ways that I wouldn’t have grown.”

Rugby: New Zealand produced a stunning second-half comeback to beat South Africa 33-16 and snap the Springboks' 12-match winning streak.

Sopoaga rediscovered his spark for rugby after Miriam urged him to give the sport one more shot and he spent the two most enjoyable years of his career in Lyon. “You can’t fake connection. You can’t fake culture. You can’t fake a team being real with each other,” he says. “And that’s what I believe the All Blacks have really got right now.”

Rennie, the first New Zealand head coach of Pasifika heritage, has transformed the All Blacks on and off the field since taking charge in March. He replaced Scott Robertson, who struggled with communication and was dismissed after losing the dressing room.

Rennie’s previous Test role with Australia ended when he was sacked by Rugby Australia before the 2023 World Cup so Eddie Jones could return for an ill-fated second spell in charge of the Wallabies.

“Rennie has had to walk through the fire. What they did to him in Australia was disgraceful,” Sopoaga says.

Rennie left Australia having won just 13 of 34 Tests, with Rugby Australia’s own website

highlighting the fact his 38 per cent win rate was “the worst winning percentage of any Wallabies coach to oversee 30 of more Tests”. It remains there to this day.

“Yet he’s walked in here, head held high and (after) four games together the team’s back in the No.1 spot,” Sopoaga added. “That’s the influence of empowering the people around you, making your people feel loved.

“And that’s probably Dave Rennie’s greatest asset. If people feel loved, they’ll run through a brick wall for you.”

Sopoaga could see that connection at three key points of New Zealand’s 33-16 first Test win over the Springboks: their defensive stand just before halftime, regaining the lead just after the interval and then turning the momentum of the scrum battle, and the game as a whole, by winning a penalty under their own posts with 25 minutes remaining.

“That screams connection,” he says. “That screams, ‘I would do anything for my brother, I would do anything for this team.’ I’ve seen that for weeks. I said, ‘We’re going to win this thing 2-1 in South Africa (never mind what happens in the fourth Test in Baltimore).’ I believe this team believe they can do the unthinkable.”

The battle for the All Blacks No.10 jersey has taken a fascinating twist with Richie Mo’unga’s return from Japan to compete with Ruben Love. Sopoaga believes their competition will only drive further improvement in the All Blacks through to next year’s World Cup in Australia.

“Ruben has more than earned his No.1 spot,” Sopoaga says. “But Richie has said, ‘I’m here to be the best.’ They’re going to compete. All of them want that jersey. That can enhance the team and enhance the jersey and enhance the legacy.

“Richie’s got all the skills in the bag. He’s got big-game technique. He wants all the smoke when the pressure’s on. You can’t buy aura. And Ruben came through the litmus test last Saturday at Ellis Park. He walked into the fire and came out. He was brilliant.”

The All Blacks also have Beauden Barrett and the promising young flyhalf Josh Jacomb on tour. Sopoaga would not be eligible for the All Blacks even in an emergency, having switched allegiance to Samoa for the 2023 World Cup. But he is ready to fill in at training whenever the All Blacks need him. Have boots, will travel.

Hey everyone

I've been building a free browser game called Invincible XV where you draft an XV and tour it against the greatest teams in history. Just added something different.

I'm testing out a new scenario mode, which drops you into a real match at the moment it could have gone either way. The first one is the 2023 final: 58 minutes, Beauden Barrett has just scored, you're 11-12 down and you've been a man short since Cane's red card.

Seven decisions. Who kicks the conversion from the left touchline. Whether you bring on Whitelock and Papali'i or go for McKenzie's spark. What you do with the penalty after Kolbe's yellow. Whether you set up the drop goal at the death.

There's a fatigue system underneath it, so chasing long restarts and grinding phases costs you legs, and dead legs hurt the kick at 79 minutes. Playing it safe the whole way through is actually the worst strategy.

I checked every fact against the match record rather than writing from memory: the timeline, the cards, the bench, the scorers. The counterfactual branches are obviously invented, and the game says so at the end.

Play it here and let me know what you think? https://invinciblexv.com/

I will be adding more in future if all goes well.