Bernard Foley and Morgan Turinui have been dissecting the All Blacks' three provincial warm-up wins, and both see enough in New Zealand's game to give the Boks a clear targeting map. Foley's main concern for the All Blacks is set-piece defence — they've conceded tries there across the tour that he believes Erasmus's staff will have catalogued carefully. He's also sceptical about whether their 'out the back' attacking structure, which has worked well against provincial blitz defences, will survive contact with what he calls arguably the best blitz defence in the history of the game. That said, he expects Rennie to persist with it regardless, and tips South Africa 3-1.
The refereeing angle is arguably the more pointed analytical thread. Turinui flags the breakdown as 'absolutely huge' across a four-Test series split between Matthew Carley, Nika Amashukeli, Angus Gardner and Karl Dickson — four referees with notably different tolerance levels at the ruck. The panel's frustration that Luke Pearce wasn't assigned any Tests adds some edge to that discussion. With 25 fifty-fifty ruck calls in a single warm-up game, the point lands: how each referee sets the breakdown standard game-to-game could shape the series as much as the players.