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Mehrtens: Ellis Park is a mountain the All Blacks can't expect to climb
Mehrtens rates Ellis Park as a near-impossible assignment for the All Blacks, arguing the intensity will rival a World Cup final — the piece unpacks his reasoning.
Ardie's fired up for Ellis Park
Savea is talking big ahead of Saturday's Ellis Park clash, framing it as a warrior-versus-warrior contest. The piece explores his mindset going into the Rugby's Greatest Rivalry fixture.
Ardie's fired up for the Ellis Park showdown
Savea is relishing the return of the Boks-All Blacks rivalry at Ellis Park, with the full piece covering his pre-match mindset and what the fixture means to him.
Stephen Donald backs Moorby's X-factor to shine against the Boks at Ellis Park
Stephen Donald flags Josh Moorby as the All Blacks' quietly significant selection for Ellis Park — a player who barely registered at the start of the year but has forced his way in through a career-best Super Rugby campaign and, according to Donald, an X-factor that sets him apart from merely reliable footballers.
Mehrtens: Ellis Park is a mountain the All Blacks won't expect to summit
Mehrtens rates the Ellis Park atmosphere and Bok home advantage so highly that he doesn't expect the All Blacks to win — the piece expands on why he thinks the intensity will surpass a World Cup final.
Mehrtens: Ellis Park is a mountain the All Blacks can't expect to climb
Mehrtens says the All Blacks face a near-impossible task at Ellis Park on Saturday, predicting the match intensity will surpass a World Cup final and that New Zealand can't realistically expect a win.
Erasmus explains the 'touch-and-go' half-back call — and flags rotation ahead
Erasmus explains the Williams/Feinberg-Mngomezulu half-back call as a close decision driven by training and tactical fit rather than club combinations — and signals he's already planning rotation for Cape Town if Test One goes the Boks' way.
Stephen Donald backs Moorby's X-factor to shine against the Boks
Stephen Donald picks apart two surprise All Blacks selections for Ellis Park — Holland's comeback and, more intriguingly, Moorby's rise from journeyman to Test wing, which Donald puts down to an X-factor that simply can't be coached.
Stephen Donald backs Moorby's X-factor to justify surprise All Blacks selection against Boks
Donald flags Moorby and Holland as the two genuine surprises in Rennie's Ellis Park squad, arguing Moorby's X-factor — earned the hard way through a long domestic and overseas journey — has made him impossible to overlook for the Bok series opener.
Will Jordan on Wellington: 'We felt we were right in it'
Jordan revisits the Wellington collapse — not as a comprehensive Bok dominance but as a 20-minute capitulation the All Blacks believe they can correct — and takes a measured line on the pace-of-play controversy heading into Ellis Park.
Plumtree identifies All Blacks defensive vulnerabilities ahead of Saturday's test
Plumtree sees defensive gaps in the All Blacks that the Boks can target on Saturday — worth reading ahead of the test.
Ex-All Black: Bok selection signals intent to match All Blacks for tempo
Ex-All Black James Parsons argues the Williams/Feinberg-Mngomezulu selection and Kolisi's omission signal that the Boks plan to match the All Blacks for tempo — and predicts a high-scoring Ellis Park thriller rather than a grinding derby.
The Tuesday work that decides Saturday: five breakdown drills shaping Boks v All Blacks
A drill-by-drill breakdown of the contact-session prep shaping Saturday's opener — arguing that ruck dominance is a fitness and accuracy problem, not a jackal one, and that the margin between South Africa winning turnovers and New Zealand hitting sub-three-second ruck speed gets settled in training long before Ellis Park.
Eddie Jones breaks down the Springbok machine — and flags the one flaw New Zealand can exploit
Jones argues the Springboks' kicking-and-forward structure is precisely what makes squad disruption irrelevant, praises the transformation of SA's player pathway as the most underacknowledged development in world rugby, and identifies Feinberg-Mngomezulu's preference for the spectacular over the pragmatic as the one vulnerability New Zealand can genuinely target — with the referee's interpretation of ruck entry the hinge the whole match turns on.
Stransky: The Boks need a strong All Blacks to be at their best
Stransky argues the Bok-All Blacks rivalry only means something when New Zealand is at full strength — and that South African rugby has historically needed that contest to raise its own game.
Erasmus flags the Rennie shift — and why Saturday's breakdown battle will define the Test
Erasmus breaks down the statistical shift between Robertson's kick-heavy All Blacks and Rennie's high-tempo, ball-in-hand side — and explains why that makes the Ellis Park breakdown battle the key battleground on Saturday.
Kitch Christie's five words that changed Springbok history
Stransky revisits the Christie 'five words' moment from 1995 that cracked All Blacks invincibility — and draws a direct line to the psychological edge Boks carry into the current Greatest Rivalry series.
The real reason Erasmus keeps picking De Allende
Erasmus reframes what makes De Allende a Springbok centurion — it's not the collisions, it's the game intelligence. The piece traces Erasmus's evolving appreciation of De Allende from Super Rugby days to 100 Tests, with Willemse adding context on his durability and understated leadership.
From Milnerton High to 100 Bok caps: The Doogz story
Gavin Rich traces De Allende's road to 100 Tests — from soccer-obsessed kid at Milnerton High, through a school politics snub that nearly derailed his rugby career, to two World Cup winners' medals. The piece is rich on the behind-the-scenes figures and formative moments that shaped one of the Boks' most durable centres.
The Trojan Horse on Rassie's Bench
Esterhuizen listed as a loose forward turns an apparent 5-3 bench into a disguised 6-2 — and that sleight of hand is the centrepiece of Erasmus's selection strategy for the first All Blacks Test.