Planet Rugby's preview of Saturday's decider in Baltimore tips the Boks to win 43-20 — the same margin by which they dismantled the All Blacks in Wellington last September — and the analytical case is rooted squarely in the forward battle. Rennie has been forced into a complete front-row rebuild after a bruising tour, and the piece argues that an entirely fresh Springbok front row, plus Lood de Jager and Cameron Hanekom still to arrive from the bench, will replicate the pattern of the last two Tests: the Bok forwards dominate the final 30 minutes and the margin balloons. The All Blacks' back-row reshuffle — a lock at blindside, Blackadder at openside and Lakai shifting to eight — is flagged as the biggest structural concern, coming up against a loose trio on its 19th start together and Marx pillaging at the breakdown.
The piece also draws a sharp contrast between the two tens. Mo'unga is framed as the organiser — a man who makes those around him better and can hold a hastily assembled side together — while SFM is characterised as still finding his post-surgery form, with the step and line breaks that defined his 2025 largely absent across the series. The key individual matchup to watch is Van den Berg starting at nine: his 36 minutes in Soweto visibly lifted the tempo around the Bok set-piece, and the piece argues that quicker service is precisely what SFM needs to rediscover his threat against a Mo'unga who weighs 85kg. With Reinach waiting at 22, South Africa effectively have two pace-setters at scrumhalf — and if the Bok scrum wins the same kind of penalties it extracted in Soweto, Karl Dickson becomes the one variable Erasmus cannot control.