All Blacks coach Dave Rennie has expressed his dismay at the draw for next year's Rugby World Cup.
Should the likely results play out early in the tournament, the All Blacks will meet the Springboks in the quarter-finals.
This would see one of the two best teams in the world eliminated before the final four.
It echoes a similar story at the 2023 edition, when the top four teams in the world at the time – France, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand – all met in the quarters, sending Ireland and France home and setting up one-sided and uninspiring semi-final match ups.
Rennie expressed his frustration at yet another bungled bracket.
"It just highlights a crazy draw. You look at the football World Cup and top four ranked sides in the world played each other in the semis and seems hard to believe that you have got us pitted against South Africa potentially in a quarter-final and the winner of that plays France."
The draw also sees former champions Australia and New Zealand clash in pool play for the first time.
"It's probably similar to the World Cup before. But just to win a title, you've got to beat them all anyway, so that's the path in front of us," Rennie said.
However, there is still plenty of rugby to play between now and the All Blacks opening World Cup fixture against Chile on October 2.
With the Bledisloe locked away for another 12 months, the All Blacks play a "dead rubber" against the Wallabies this weekend, but the side still has plenty of reason to deliver another commanding performance.
"The cup's secure, but we still want to be better. We talk a lot about black standard. It was good last week. We did a lot of really good things. But we still think we can be better than that."
Rennie is weary of a Wallabies backlash in Sydney.
"They're too good a side to lie down. It's a Wallaby side we know will be hurting. They are proud men back at home in front of what will be a massive crowd. They'll be highly motivated and I'm sure they'll bar up in the weekend."
After a gruelling tour of South Africa which resulted in a 3-1 series defeat to the Springboks, Rennie said it took some time for his troops to recover both mentally and physically.
"The boys are in a good spot, there's no doubt everyone was pretty shattered when they got back. There was some criticism about us not throwing them all into NPC, but that just shows a lack of awareness around the physical and emotional toll of playing and travelling in seven weeks in Africa. I was really happy the boys responded the way they did."
Despite his run of 36 tests on the trot, there appears to be no fatigue in Damian McKenzie's game, named again at first five after an impressive display at Eden Park.
McKenzie said he has been given somewhat of a free license on attack.
However, he stressed this does not mean running the ball with reckless abandon.
"It's a fine balance of making sure [we're] not putting ourselves under pressure through running it too often. If you look in the weekend we had a real good balance between kicking and running. But also as a ten, you've got to make sure you're driving the team around the park and really leading in that game management area."
While dominant in almost all areas in Auckland, McKenzie said they will take the same ruthless mindset into Sydney test.
"I got a pretty easy ride from our forwards, but there's no expectation that we just think that's going to happen again this weekend. We expect a tough response from the Aussies."
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