Ben Smith's post-match breakdown of the Auckland Test centres on a damning statistical reality: all five All Blacks tries came against Grant Williams, either in direct defensive mismatches or from his box kick. Smith's argument is that Erasmus and his coaching staff effectively repeated the same selection mistake from Eden Park last year — picking a halfback the All Blacks already had a blueprint for exploiting — and paid for it again.
The analysis is granular. Smith traces each try to specific structural vulnerabilities: Williams' size disadvantage as the edge closer in the Bok defensive system (a role De Klerk owned through dominant contact Williams can't replicate), his upright passing technique producing high, lobbed deliveries that robbed the attack of timing, and his tendency to add extra steps off the ruck giving defences a beat to reset. The All Blacks targeted him so deliberately that set-piece design — particularly Jordie Barrett's long-ball plays and Savea's scrum-side carries — were engineered to isolate Williams in one-on-ones. Smith concedes some of the defensive breakdowns were compounded by Bok injury, and credits Williams' kicking game and some sharp ruck-edge running, but his conclusion is pointed: the selection is shaping Bok game style in a way New Zealand have now twice exploited, and Reinach should start in Cape Town.