All Blacks coach Dave Rennie addresses the media at The Vineyard Hotel on Thursday.
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All Blacks coach Dave Rennie expects “an absolute arm wrestle” when his side faces a fired-up Springbok team looking for revenge in the second Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry at DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday.
Rennie has made six changes to the matchday 23 that shocked the Boks 33-16 last week at Ellis Park.
There are three changes in the starting XV, with Leroy Carter replacing Josh Moorby on the left wing, Simon Parker coming in at blindside flank, and George Bower promoted from the bench at loosehead prop.
Moorby drops to the bench, while Tupou Vaa’i shifts from blindside flank to No. 5 lock alongside Fabian Holland. Bower, who made a big impact off the bench at Ellis Park, takes over from the concussed Ethan de Groot in the No. 1 jersey.
“It could be an absolute arm wrestle,” Rennie told the media on Thursday. “We’re aware of what the potential bounce-back [could be]. They’ll be disappointed with last weekend, and there’s been talk around how they bounced back last year.
“We're well aware that the Springboks at their best are tough to beat anyway, but we've talked a lot about us being better. We think we can be a lot better than we were last weekend, and so that's the key.
“We've got to be able to lift our level. We know they're going to be better, but we don't want to focus totally on what South Africa are going to bring. We want to focus on what we can bring.”
There will certainly be no complacency from the All Blacks after last week’s win, as they look to put one hand on the RGR trophy in Cape Town.
“Not saying this is going to happen, but it’s us thinking what we did last week is going to be enough to win this week. It’s us having that mindset that we’re going to have to go deeper this week,” the All Blacks coach said.
“They’ll just try and do what they did last week, but try and do it better. They might attack us at set-piece, put more balls in the air, try and get a big wall in front of us, and try and spend as much time in our 22 as they can.”
The 62-year-old All Blacks mentor predicted that the scrum will once again be a tightly contested affair, especially after its impact last week in Johannesburg.
“Scrum-wise, we’ve spoken with World Rugby around a couple of issues from our point of view, and so we think scrum-wise we’ll be a lot better. That was a massive in for them last week,” he said. “[The contact area] has been a big focus for us – they’re big men, and when they’re full of energy, if they can get into a tackle it’s hard to get go-forward metres.
“Sometimes you just need to bar up, carry hard, and win races in support to generate quick ball. We still want to play at a high tempo to give us opportunities, and they did a good job last week denying us that.”
ALL BLACKS
15 Damian McKenzie, 14 Will Jordan, 13 Quinn Tupaea, 12 Jordie Barrett, 11 Leroy Carter, 10 Ruben Love, 9 Cam Roigard, 8 Ardie Savea (c), 7 Luke Jacobson, 6 Simon Parker, 5 Tupou Vaa’i, 4 Fabian Holland, 3 Tyrel Lomax, 2 Codie Taylor, 1 George Bower. Replacements: 16 Asafo Aumua, 17 Xavier Numia, 18 Fletcher Newell, 19 Patrick Tuipulotu, 20 Peter Lakai, 21 Kyle Preston, 22 Anton Lienert-Brown, 23 Josh Moorby.
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