Scott Barrett, watching the RGR series from home while recovering from injury, has offered a candid postmortem of why the Springboks won. His diagnosis centres on the set-piece: South Africa earned critical scrum penalties that gave them field position, which then fed directly into their maul game. Barrett frames it not as refereeing misfortune — he's pointedly dismissive of that line of thinking — but as the Boks executing their core identity at the moments that mattered most. He acknowledges the All Blacks are addressing those gaps, but is clear-eyed that structural forward deficiencies don't get fixed in a week.
The piece also covers Barrett's return to the squad without the captaincy, which passes to Codie Taylor in Ardie Savea's absence. Assistant coach Jason Ryan's view is that shedding the leadership burden might actually free Barrett up to play his best rugby — and that the long Super Rugby lay-off, painful as it was, could extend his career. Worth reading for the frank All Blacks self-assessment ahead of the Bledisloe.