New Zealand will be performing the Haka full time against the Springboks in a full scale incoming tour next year. Ayanda Ndamane Independent Newspapers
It hasn’t sunk in yet for rugby fans that rugby’s biggest rugby road show is rolling into South Africa next year.
SA Rugby has confirmed that the All Blacks will play eight matches in a traditional tour in 2026 and the Springboks will reciprocate in New Zealand in 2030.
A British and Irish Lions tour is special — disregard the pandemic-wracked visit in 2021 — but a full-scale All Blacks tour takes the cake.
They are the Boks’ greatest foes and the 104-year rivalry has never been stronger.
The Kiwis will play three Tests and matches against each United Rugby Championship side. The eighth match will be against the SA A side.
The last time the New Zealanders played a series in South Africa was in 1996 and I was fortunate enough to cover the tour although there was the pain of recording the All Blacks’ first-ever series win on SA soil.
It was tumultuous times for the Springboks — less than a year from the 1995 World Cup triumph over the All Blacks, Kitch Christie’s team had been dismantled.
Kitch himself had retired because of ill health and his captain, Francois Pienaar, had been injured the previous week in a Tri-Nations Test in Cape Town against the All Blacks.
Let me explain. The Boks and the All Blacks first played a Tri-Nations fixture and then the tour itself started the following week in Durban.
Pienaar would not have realised it but the 29-18 defeat at Newlands was his last Test. The new coach, Andre Markgraaff, was a powerful character and the speculation was that he ditched Pienaar (when he had recovered from his injury) because he was too strong a personality.
Pienaar was just 29 and still had plenty to offer but the coach seemed to regard him as a threat.
Markgraaff wiped out most of the players that had started in the epic 15-12 win in the final at Ellis Park — just six players survived.
Gary Teichmann was the new captain and there were new caps in Andre Venter, Henry Tromp, Andre Snyman, and Danie van Schalkwyk. Curiously, Markgraaff had dropped to the bench stars in Joost van der Westhuizen (for Johan Roux) and Kobus Wiese (replaced by Steve Atherton).
James Small had been dropped for the Test because he had been spotted in a nightclub on the eve of the Cape Town Test — playing at fullback he was one of the better Boks the next day — and in an amusing irony, his hearing was staged in one of the Kings Park pubs.
The problem for the Boks was that not only had the coach selected strangely but the opposition had one of the strongest sides in All Black history.
The Boks’ nemesis, Sean Fitzpatrick, captained a settled side of superstars. The names roll off the tongue — Christian Cullen, Frank Bunce, Walter Little, Jeff Wilson, Justin Marshall, Andrew Mehrtens. And that is just the backs. The forwards were equally illustrious and included generational talents in Michael Jones and Zinzan Brooke.
The score of 23-19 to the visitors flattered the Boks but they believed they could level the series in Pretoria and force a decider at Ellis Park.
The All Blacks were on the cusp of glorious history. If they could get over the line at Loftus Versfeld to win the series they would have achieved what five previous All Blacks touring sides had found unachievable since they first visited South Africa in 1928.
Fittingly, the match was a classic, and with a few minutes to go the Boks needed a converted try to win the match. But Zinzan at No 8 settled the matter when he kicked an outrageous drop goal.
The All Blacks had won 33-26. Tears ran down Fitzpatrick’s granite face and they returned home to a ticker-tape parade through the streets of Auckland.
That is how much winning a series in South Africa means to the All Blacks and it is why next year’s tour is a guaranteed blockbuster.