For the All Blacks, who are settling into Johannesburg ahead of their Test against the Springboks, the full Ellis Park experience begins with a fierce welcome as the team bus enters South African rugby’s citadel.
The entrance, lined by supporters, is noisy and it is intimidating – a little slice of what the players can expect once they run on to the pitch in front of more than 60,000 supporters, as explained by assistant coach Jason Ryan today.
“Even the bus trip is pretty feral on the way in,” Ryan said. “We’ll probably have to do a bit of work on that.”
By “work” he meant preparation. And by “feral”, he meant, “there are a few hand symbols going on and a few empty cans going towards the window and that sort of thing”.
Potentially sensing looming headlines, Ryan hastened to add: “In all honesty, it’s probably coming from a good place. It’s a hell of a rivalry isn’t it, the Springboks and All Blacks? As much as they want to beat us, there is a good amount of respect there, I feel. I know there is from us and we look forward to that.”
The reception on Sunday morning NZT is likely to be as intense as ever given the stakes involved.
This is the first time the two nations have met since last year’s Rugby World Cup final in Paris when the All Blacks were within a missed goalkick of a remarkable triumph after playing most of the game with 14 men.
In the Test before that, the Boks thrashed the All Blacks 35-7 at Twickenham.
Before that, the All Blacks comfortably accounted for the Boks 35-20 at Mt Smart Stadium.
And before that, at Ellis Park in 2022, the All Blacks bounced back from a defeat at Mbombela Stadium (their third loss in a row after the Ireland series defeat), for a remarkable victory which effectively saved Ian Foster’s job as head coach and kept him on course for the World Cup.
Overall the nations have played 106 times, with the all Blacks winning 62 and the Boks 40. There have been four draws.
With two victories in the Rugby Championship following their successful Australia tour, the Boks are on track for their first success in the competition since 2019 (the All Blacks have won the last four), so another success ahead of the second Test in Cape Town will all but sew up the title for the home side.
Ryan, who was brought in as an assistant by Foster after the Ireland series in 2022, got his hands dirty as an international coach on that two-Test tour of South Africa, hence the memories of Ellis Park are fresh and significant.
So are those from what for the All Blacks was a disastrous World Cup warm-up Test at Twickenham last year when the All Blacks, hampered by ill-discipline, struggled to fire a shot until Cam Roigard’s remarkable cameo at the end.
“They taught me a fair lesson as well,” he said. “That Twickenham Test, they dinged us up pretty badly to be fair. It’s the best contest you can judge yourself on, especially in the forwards, where the contest is won or lost. With those experiences and also the World Cup final, you can give the boys a little bit of confidence around what we’re doing and making sure they’re really clear.
“As Dane Coles once said, it’s probably the greatest challenge and best arena you can test yourself in the All Blacks. We’re really excited by that and will embrace that and walk towards it. They’re the world champions and 64,000-odd roaring South Africans - there’s nothing better.”
Ryan described the Boks’ scrum as the best in the world, but clearly has confidence in his own team’s set piece, which performed well in the England series and helped destroy Argentina at Eden Park recently.
That being acknowledged, “we know we will have to go up a couple of gears this weekend against the Springboks”, he added.
“We probably haven’t been tested where we will be tested on Saturday. We’re excited by that. We believe we can play some good footy off our scrum and have a crack.”
A potential advantage for the All Blacks is the knee injury to veteran lock Eben Etzebeth which is likely to rule him out of the Test.
Fellow locks Franco Mostert, Lood de Jager and Jean Kleyn are all definitely out.
In contrast for the All Blacks, skipper Scott Barrett will return to the second row after recovering from a hand injury which has kept him out of the last two Tests.
“What I know about Scooter is that the bigger the contest, usually the better he goes,” Ryan said.
Queried on last week’s bombshell news that Leon MacDonald was out of the coaching team following after failing to see eye to eye with head coach Scott Robertson, Ryan said it was now business as usual.
“We’ve just got on with it. Conversations were had and decisions were made and we move on pretty quickly and you have to. I’ve got a massive amount of respect for Leon as a man and as a coach, as I have Razor. They’ve come to that decision. As far as we’re concerned, I guess it’s last week’s news and we keep moving forward.”
And that applies, too, to Sunday’s Test against the world champions at one of the most intimidating arenas in the game.
“One of the great things in this environment is we pride ourselves on setting young guys up to succeed so they can just go out and embrace it and play,” Ryan said.
“Sam Darry obviously has made the most of his opportunity too as have some younger boys who are all trending up in their game. As long as they can play free and play with physicality and a clear mind it’s a simple formula.”
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