All Blacks humiliation must be accepted as a crisis by New Zealand Rugby or more lows will follow

Tuesday, 16 September 2025

ANALYSIS: If the All Blacks’ 43-10 loss to the Springboks on Saturday isn’t enough for New Zealand Rugby to accept there are significant changes needed to game, then they have a different definition of crisis to many New Zealanders.

The All Blacks weren’t just beaten in Wellington, they were given a complete rugby lesson by the Springboks’ worldly and world-class coaching box that featured South Africans, a couple of Irishmen and a well-known New Zealander in Tony Brown.

Scott Robertson and his assistants were outcoached, as they were against Argentina in Buenos Aires, and must take some responsibility - but the solution isn’t throwing rocks at those individuals.

You can’t separate the All Blacks coaches from the high-performance structures underneath them. Robertson, who has never coached outside New Zealand, is in fact a direct product of that flawed system.

There are two major problems in New Zealand high-performance rugby, both of them slow-acting poisons that have been present for a decade and are starting to make the All Blacks patient look very unwell.

First is the lack of alignment between NZ Rugby, the Super Rugby clubs, the provincial unions and the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association.

They haven’t been on the same page for years, and The Post understands that a “rugby summit” involving these parties at Sky Stadium in Wellington a few weeks ago failed to produce any concrete plans that could be taken to the NZ Rugby board for approval.

The issue was familiar: money. Or, more accurately, who pays for the recommendations made in the Men’s Pathways and Competitions report, an exhaustive piece of work that deserves to be made public because it grows in relevance with every All Blacks loss.

The second issue has been hiding in plain sight for years.

There are far too many good players in New Zealand who spend far too much time training with each other and not enough time competing against each other for the All Blacks jersey.

Outstanding young Crusaders hooker George Bell should be at another Super club trying to end Codie Taylor’s All Blacks career, not settling underneath him in a cosy succession plan.

Where is the evidence that stockpiling of players in one or two Super Rugby hubs is producing better All Blacks players, or indeed All Blacks coaches, who are actually used to working their way through losses and adversity?

There is no greater sign of New Zealand’s current dysfunction than the Crusaders winning eight of the past nine Super Rugby titles. That doesn’t prove excellence, it proves a lack of competition due to an unequal spread of talent and resources - and what industry ever makes a better product if there is no genuine competition?

This argument isn’t motivated by supposed anti-Crusaders animus - the common strawman argument when this point is raised - and here are some other examples of the many that could be made.

All Blacks prop Pasilio Tosi, a man with the size to take on the Springboks, has played less than 500 minutes of Super Rugby and test rugby this year - and we’re nearly in October. He won’t start at the Hurricanes next year, either, with Tyrel Lomax in front of him.

Getting better at rugby by not playing rugby is a novel high-performance concept, but one that seems to have been accepted in New Zealand.

And Josh Jacomb is the most naturally gifted non-test No 10 in New Zealand, but he’s gone backwards this year because he isn’t getting enough exposure to pressure situations as the Chiefs backup No 10.

As if to prove that point, Jacomb missed a crucial straightforward penalty in the last 10 minutes for Taranaki against Otago on Saturday, ironically handing a team and individual victory to current Highlanders No 10 Cameron Millar.

These fundamental issues will take hard work and mindset shifts to solve, but if they are not addressed the Springboks loss certainly won’t be rock bottom for the All Blacks.