Brenden Nel argues that the Boks' laboured 17-10 win over Argentina deserves less scrutiny than it's getting — not because the problems weren't real, but because that match was always more about getting returning players through 80 minutes than revealing anything tactical. The more interesting question he raises is whether Erasmus deliberately kept his cards close, using the windy, arm-wrestle conditions in Buenos Aires as cover to avoid showing what the Boks have actually been building for the All Blacks series. Nel's case: with 15 players and key staff only just returning to camp, and with a fortnight before Ellis Park, the Pumas game was a throwaway in terms of tactical intelligence. The injury to Kolisi and the suspected concussion for Esterhuizen are genuine setbacks, but Nel frames the bigger story as the psychological warfare already stirring — the All Blacks have started making noise about slowing play and officiating, and that needle is only going to sharpen over the next 10 days.
Was the Pumas performance a deliberate hand-hide ahead of the All Blacks series?
Nel makes the case that the Boks' scrappy Pumas win tells us almost nothing about their All Blacks plans — and that may well have been by design, with Erasmus possibly using the low-stakes fixture to hide his hand ahead of Ellis Park.
- Springboks
- Argentina
- Rassie Erasmus
- New Zealand
- Siya Kolisi
All Blacks' loosehead crisis hands Springboks a ready-made weapon in Greatest Rivalry Series
Jeff Wilson has publicly identified loosehead prop as the All Blacks' most dangerous weakness ahead of four consecutive Tests against the Springboks — with Williams likely out, Tu'ungafasi's future uncertain, and the remaining options short on caps and experience. Set against the depth Erasmus has built across the prop positions, this piece maps out why scrum time could be where the Greatest Rivalry Series is decided.
Stephen Donald: Robertson copied the Boks — Rennie must go back to All Blacks DNA
Stephen Donald backs Hansen's anti-copycat argument, saying Robertson erred by chasing the Springbok blueprint rather than New Zealand's tempo-based strengths — and expects Rennie to correct that course ahead of a blockbuster four-Test series in South Africa.
Mulder's '95 Warning: Don't Sleep on the All Blacks
1995 World Cup winner Japie Mulder warns against writing off the All Blacks ahead of the four-Test series, drawing on South Africa's own underdog story to argue the gap in rankings doesn't guarantee a comfortable series win.
So how deep is the Springbok squad?
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Erasmus: winning stays non-negotiable, whatever the World Cup build-up demands
Erasmus has made his 2025 season intent explicit: rotation and World Cup-building happen inside a framework where winning remains the non-negotiable baseline. The piece breaks down what that means for squad management, the veterans' standing, and why the All Blacks series carries extra weight.