Nick Mallett's verdict on the Ellis Park defeat is unambiguous: the Boks created enough chances to win but were undone by poor halfback execution. He rates Williams and Feinberg-Mngomezulu four out of ten, pointing to indecision at the breakdown, unclear passing intent, and a failure to direct the attack coherently inside the All Blacks' 22. The numbers back him — ten 22-metre entries yielding just 0.7 points per entry against New Zealand's 3.6 from nine is a damning contrast. For Mallett, the Boks' problem isn't chance creation; it's what happens when those chances arrive.
Looking ahead to Cape Town, Mallett frames the selection call as a philosophical one. If Erasmus wants the backline to genuinely function as a weapon, Libbok is his pick at ten — more effective collectively even if less complete than Feinberg-Mngomezulu individually. Pollard remains the wet-weather safety option. At nine, Mallett flags Morné van den Berg as a seriously underrated alternative to Williams. He stops short of prescribing Erasmus's choices, but the directional thrust is clear: the halfback combination needs either a reset or a significant performance improvement, because the communication breakdown between nine and ten is what's leaving Bok tries on the field.