The post-match debrief from Ellis Park makes for uncomfortable reading. Both Erasmus and Du Toit acknowledged that New Zealand arrived with a gameplan the Boks simply hadn't anticipated — particularly the All Blacks' systematic stripping in the tackle, which neutralised the maul and denied Marx what looked like a certain try. Du Toit put it plainly: they played differently than expected, and that was the difference. Erasmus was similarly candid, refusing to reach for excuses around conditions or inexperience, and instead pointing to New Zealand's ability to keep the Boks scoreless inside the 22 despite sustained territorial pressure. The Boks dominated the scrum and territory for much of the first hour, but Erasmus's blunt assessment was that winning one phase isn't enough against a side that controls the rest — and that the two or three moments that turned the match were forced errors, not random ones. Critically, he pushed back against the idea that this was a wake-up call: the Boks knew what was required and didn't deliver it, which suggests the concern isn't ignorance but execution under pressure.