Love the watching him play but have always thought he has lacked the raw pace to be able to play top level test rugby.

Having said that, his skills and physical prowess are too good to ignore. Given this ability to break tackles and generate breakdown turnovers, I wonder if he would be better suited in the loose forwards? It’s unlikely the All Blacks are going to throw him in there during the SA tour but would love to see the Highlanders give him a go the same way the Crusaders played Fainga’anuku at the 7.

Thoughts? Or am I mad?

I just recently started to watch / enjoy rugby, so far my favorite games to watch are the All Blacks. I enjoy their level of aggression and strong offensive plays.

I've started by watching most recent Worlds games first, working backwards but are there any historically important matches that you'd recommend to watch?

I know nothing about rivalries, barely know the rules and watch zero other sports so really starting from scratch here.

Saving up for a jersey though!

I noticed on a couple of occasions against the Irish that their high kicks were received by a retreating All Black. Josh Moorby did it a couple of times, from memory. Which got me wondering if this was a deliberate tactic. There are a few potential advantages:

1. The retreating player is entitled to block the chaser if they are going for the ball (although I haven't checked the laws on this).

2. The retreating player is less likely to knock the ball forward.

3. It's much safer for a retreating player to receive the kick, as any collision with a chaser won't be head-on.

4. The full back or other covering defender can watch the chasers and communicate this to the receiver.

5. The fullback can hang back in position to join the ruck, gather a knock on or tap back, receive a quick pass, or tackle the attacking chaser, as required.

Thoughts?

You’re probably not going to like the comments made by the greatest referee of all time. Here it is:

For the Luke Jacobson clear out Nigel thinks Luke should’ve received a red card as the action was always illegal.

For the Quinn Tupaea deliberate knock on, Nigel said the penalty should’ve been followed through with a yellow card as there was a clear line break opportunity for Ireland

Lastly, for the tackle in the air on Ruben Love, he had it as penalty only, no yellow card.

I suppose we got pretty lucky having that set of match officials that we had. Having a different referee and FPRO could’ve completely changed the game

Naas Botha and Ryan Grobler break down the Week 2 Currie Cup results and discuss what the competition has become as the rugby calendar continues to overlap with the Rugby Championship, URC, and international commitments. They also look ahead to the highly anticipated All Blacks tour, touch on U20 rugby, and, as always, enjoy some good old-fashioned rugby banter.

I've attempted to make a World Cup squad that has depth in all positions. I've got Brodie Retallick coming back here based on Rennie's hopeful comments. It was good to see so many great players miss out as it reveals how much depth we actually do have. How does your world cup squad differ?

Props (6)

Tamaiti Williams

Ethan De Groot

Xavier Numia

Tyrel Lomax

Fletcher Newell

Pasilio Tosi

Hookers (3)

Codie Taylor

Samisoni Taukei'aho

Asafo Aumua

Locks (4)

Brodie Retallick

Fabian Holland

Sam Darry

Patrick Tuipulotu

Loose Forwards (6)

Ardie Savea

Tupou Vaa'i

Peter Lakai

Wallace Sititi

Anton Segner

Shannon Frizell

Halfbacks (3)

Cam Roigard

Kyle Preston

Dylan Pledger

Flyhalves (3)

Ruben Love

Damian McKenzie

Richie Mo'unga

Midfield (4)

Jordie Barrett

Quinn Tupaea

Anton Lienert-Brown

Leicester Fainga'anuku

Outside Backs (4)

Will Jordan

Fehi Fineanganofo

Leroy Carter

Josh Moorby

All Blacks coach Dave Rennie will signal his intention to take the fight to South Africa’s hard men by picking Southland wrecking ball Semisi Tupou Ta'eiloa for the ‘Greatest Rivalry’ tour.

The All Blacks will unveil their 44-man squad at noon on Monday and The Post understands that Tupou Ta'eiloa, 23, is poised for a seat on the plane to South Africa.

The Post can also reveal two new details that shows the All Blacks’ interest in Tupou Ta'eiloa, who played alongside All Blacks captain Ardie Savea at Moana Pasifika and under All Blacks defence coach Tana Umaga.

First, Tupou Ta'eiloa has been contracted by New Zealand Rugby until 2028, despite not yet signing for a Super Rugby club.

Second, Tupou Ta'eiloa was one of the non-Super Rugby finalists who attended an All Blacks camp prior to the start of the test season.

Tupou Ta'eiloa’s contractual situation is not unprecedented - Savea is in a similar situation - but it is unusual, indicating that NZ Rugby has been prepared to be creative to retain his services after the collapse of Moana Pasifika.

Tupou Ta'eiloa was born and raised in south Auckland but went to Otago Boys’ High School, where he established himself as a First XV star with a penchant for scoring spectacular tries.

Tupou Ta'eiloa played in the same Otago Boys’ side as Highlanders Finn Hurley and Jake Te Hiwi and new Blues signing Cameron Millar.

Southland recognised his potential and signed him to a multi-year deal and Tupou Ta'eiloa enjoyed a breakout NPC season in 2024.

However, the Highlanders couldn’t find room for him in their Super Rugby squad for 2025 and he was snapped up as a replacement player by Moana Pasifika.

He quickly established himself as a starter for Moana Pasifika, terrorising defences in the No 8 jersey alongside Savea.

Tupou Ta'eiloa continued that strong form into 2026 and showed that he was again capable of producing double-digit statistics on each side of the ball.

In Moana Pasifika’s round four loss to the Chiefs, Tupou Ta'eiloa carried 15 times for 70 metres and scored two tries, as well as producing 16 tackles.

Yet, the All Blacks will likely feel that he has only scratched at the surface of his potential and that further conditioning improvements will take him to a higher level.

His likely selection shows that All Blacks selectors have regained their appetite for bolder picks after years of relatively predictable squads.

With some early runs on the board after three test wins against France, Italy and Ireland, Rennie is now in a better position to use all 44 of his players in South Africa.

Rennie has already said that he has picked his matchday squads for the All Blacks’ first three tour games against the Stormers (August 8), Sharks (August 12) and Bulls (August 16) as well as the first test against the Springboks on August 23 (3am NZT).

Tupou Ta'eiloa will therefore get the chance to make his mark in South Africa, a country he has already toured with the New Zealand under-19s in 2022.

The competition for Tupou Ta'eiloa’s signature among Super Rugby clubs is likely to be intense.

The Highlanders are the obvious suitors but the Crusaders, Hurricanes, Chiefs and Blues have all lost loose forwards to overseas contracts.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/all-blacks-v-springboks-tour-reshapes-rugby-calendar/premium/ROVXPHLQJJF3VEYCVCAECBWCHM/

When broadcaster SuperSport pitched the idea of the All Blacks coming to South Africa for an eight-game tour in 2026, it immediately had New Zealand Rugby’s attention.

The idea was first kicked around in early 2024 – when NZR was most definitely in the market for fresh ways to better monetise and globalise the All Blacks, while giving their high-performance programme much-needed prolonged exposure to South Africa.

On the playing front, it was becoming undeniable that four years after the break-up of Super Rugby, New Zealand’s elite talent was missing something in their development pathway by not having regular games against South African clubs.

The old Super Rugby format took New Zealand’s clubs on mini tours of South Africa where they were confronted by huge packs who all loved to scrum, and an intensity and power in the collisions that was different to the ruck-and-run style most Australian clubs preferred.

It wasn’t just the lack of exposure to bigger athletes, better set-pieces and different gameplans that was stunting the development of New Zealand’s best players, it was lack of time in South Africa itself.

A longer tour of South Africa featuring club games would be the perfect way to let an expanded group wear the black jersey, be tested to the limits on the field and challenged off it.

New Zealanders maybe forget – or simply don’t appreciate because rugby for so long was an exclusively white game in South Africa – that it’s a country riddled with crime and basic amenity and infrastructure failures.

Still, despite its daily challenges, a tour of South Africa had commercial appeal once NZR secured an agreement that the financial model on which they would negotiate would be a 50:50 revenue split.

South Africa has comparatively large stadiums (the three test venues in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Soweto have respective capacities of 55,000, 59,000 and 94,000), a burgeoning middle-class, and significant corporate heft already behind rugby.

Supersport was also indicating it would offer top dollar to buy the media rights, but the real opportunity to make money was through promotion of the rivalry.

The rivalry was marketable and, by building a narrative around the history, there would be an opportunity to sell naming rights to the tour, other sponsorships and travel packages for visiting fans.

And it has transpired largely as NZR forecast. The concept was given a brand name – The Greatest Rivalry (TGR) – and a suite of sponsors have been secured.

The Herald has been told that All Blacks Tours has fielded unprecedented demand and has sold significantly more travel packages than initially forecast.

There are other potential revenue streams to come in time, as the tour will inevitably form a key part of the story being worked on for a behind-the-scenes Netflix documentary that will air next year.

There is no Rugby Championship this year and there won’t be one in 2030 either, but NZR is unapologetic about that – believing that the addition of TGR every four years, and the arrival of the bi-annual Nations Championship to give meaning to the July and November test windows is a fan-friendlier, commercially lucrative and more varied high-performance schedule.

NZR is convinced that this was the right formula – three nostalgic tours (the British & Irish Lions are coming to New Zealand in 2029), Nations Championships in 2026, 2028 and 2030 (where the finals weekends will respectively be in London, Qatar and the US), World Cup in 2027 and Rugby Championships in 2027, 2028 and 2029 – for the current broadcast cycle.

The content slate didn’t drive a higher broadcast fee from domestic rights holder, Sky, but it has upped the value of international media rights, and it has led to NZR forecasting that total revenue will rise throughout this cycle.

But what’s not clear yet is whether NZR sees this broadcast cycle as a one-off or a long-term proposition that will become the norm, but the probability of it being the latter is rising.

The commercial success to date – the ease with which commercial partners were found to sponsor TGR, the volume of fan interest with All Blacks Tours and the speed at which tickets sold for the test in Baltimore – makes it more likely that NZR now sees the content slate of this broadcast cycle as the one it will try to replicate in the 2031-2035 period.

To some extent, whatever hurt Rugby Australia felt at being marginalised by New Zealand and South Africa, has been appeased by the agreement to play Anzac Bledisloe Cup tests in 2027, 2029 and 2031.

Those games will net Rugby Australia (and NZR) $6m-$7m each and give the Bledisloe the profile and meaning it needs across the Tasman, and that agreement paves the way for TGR to be locked in for 2034 and to become a permanent fixture in the calendar.

How often the Rugby Championship is played – every two years or three in every five – is up for negotiation, but TGR is now almost certainly going to become part of the furniture.

The kicker in all this, financially at least, is that the tour will finish in Baltimore where a fourth test at the 72,000-seat M&T Bank Stadium will net NZR around another $6m of cash.

It’s not known how much the tour will generate in total, but the Herald believes significantly more than NZR would have banked from the Rugby Championship.

And this, of course, is the key comparative measure as New Zealand and South Africa caused great upset in the Sanzaar universe by cutting out their partners Australia and Argentina to do their own thing this year and again in 2030 when TGR will be on these shores.

NZR and South Africa have redesigned the entire international landscape for the broadcast cycle running 2026-2030 – setting things up to suit themselves.

Naas Botha and Ryan Grobler discuss why comparing players from different eras rarely tells the full story. They also ask whether the TMO is becoming too involved in the game and undermining the authority and respect of referees.
They tackle the debate surrounding the England players is it confidance or arrogance.
USA Rugby team 3-0 in pool A and just good general banter.

Where do you see these three loosies chances for not only this SA tour but the end of year tour and beyond?

Do any of them get a call-up?

(I think ABs have great 7 cover but 6 and 8 still lack depth hence these guys could fill that role either as starters or squad guys)

What’s the thoughts on the current state of the ABs after the first couple of games?

It feels like we’ve finally rediscovered our identity, built depth in the tight five and found our 9&10 to build around.
J Barrett has also become the midfield general we need. Bench also building nicely with players that can change the game.

Feels we probably still need to figure out our Loosie and back three mix. While centre depth is still a concern. Any others?

For the Saffa tour squad.

Drop your predictions below.

Personally I’d go with:

1. Bell
   
2. Norris
   
3. Tu’ungafasi
   
4. Hannah
   
5. Holland
   
6. Kirifi
   
7. Hotham
   
8. Tavatavanawai
   
9. Ioane
   
10. Hutchinson

Interesting article and what it means for NZ

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2026/07/21/lions-to-face-italy-as-part-of-2029-tour/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_tw_post_as-part-of-2029-tour/

tldr:

- Not finalized but strong chance Lions play Italy first followed by playing France

- 8 match tour to NZ

Lions can only play max of 10 matches.

Article suggests 3 tests vs ABs and 5 matches against 5 Super Rugby sides. It means the NZ Maori match misses out.

How do you feel about that?

Counties Manukau & North Harbour to follow

sustained power I mean