South Africa’s URC franchises must field strong teams for next year’s All Blacks tour if it’s to be a true success, writes SIMON BORCHARDT.
In the worst-kept secret, Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry was confirmed last week, with the All Blacks set to tour South Africa in August and September 2026, and the Springboks travelling to New Zealand in 2030.
The Rugby Championship won’t be staged in those years, with Sanzaar confirming full editions will take place in 2027 (a World Cup year), 2028 and 2029.
Understandably, the biggest talking point was the venue allocation for the Test series: Joburg will host the first and third Tests (at Ellis Park and FNB Stadium), with Cape Town hosting the second. A fourth Test will be played at a yet-to-be-determined overseas venue.
My initial reaction – and it hasn’t changed – is that the organisers made a mistake by including that fourth Test as part of the series. A series between the Springboks and All Blacks in South Africa should be decided in South Africa, not at a neutral venue.
The overseas Test is clearly a commercial play and will keep the third Test at FNB Stadium from being a dead rubber. But for me, it should have been a three-Test series in South Africa followed by a separate one-off fixture abroad. We saw how easily the 2023 World Cup warm-up between the Boks and All Blacks at Twickenham sold out, despite only the Qatar Cup being at stake.
And if the series ends 2-2, whichever team led 2-1 after the three Tests in South Africa will rightly claim they were the real winners.
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However, the success of the tour may be determined not by the Tests, but by the four matches the All Blacks will play against South Africa’s URC franchises.
They’ll face the Stormers at Cape Town Stadium, the Sharks at Kings Park and the Bulls at Loftus ahead of the first Test, and the Lions at Ellis Park before the second.
What we don’t need is a situation where Rassie Erasmus releases no Boks for these matches. While it’s understandable he’d want to protect his front-line stars for the Test series, fringe players unlikely to feature, or those earmarked for limited game time, should be made available to their franchises.
This would prevent the non-Test matches from becoming routine blowouts.
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That’s exactly what happened on the Lions tours of Australia earlier this year and South Africa in 2021. Lockdown restrictions meant Erasmus couldn’t release anyone from a large Bok squad, and the tourists duly smashed the Joburg-based Lions (56-14), Sharks (54-7 and 71-31) and Stormers (49-3).
Some will argue nobody remembers those fixtures anyway, and the Test series is all that matters. But if that’s the case, why have an eight-match tour at all?
Fans will pay big money to attend those franchise fixtures, and they deserve more than glorified training runs.
Photo: Phil Walter/Getty Images
