New Zealand will fly to South Africa next month for the four-Test centrepiece of "Rugby's Greatest Rivalry" -- and the men who have shaped this fixture are already framing it as a defining moment for Dave Rennie's rebuilt All Blacks.
The tourists will warm up against all four South African United Rugby Championship franchises before meeting the Springboks twice in Johannesburg and once in Cape Town, with the series closing in Baltimore on September 12. The two nations have split the last four World Cups between them, but Rassie Erasmus's Boks have won five of their past six meetings with New Zealand -- a run that includes the 2023 World Cup final and the All Blacks' heaviest-ever defeat, in Wellington last year.
Sean Fitzpatrick, the only man to captain an All Blacks side to a series victory on South African soil, back in 1996, believes winning in the republic would set up next year's World Cup rather than distract from it.
"My point of view is that this is a wonderful opportunity to win a series in South Africa," Fitzpatrick said at a function in Johannesburg. "If I was captain, I would be talking about that, and if we do that, the World Cup will take care of itself. You are going to need 30 to 40 players to be victorious over four consecutive Saturdays to win this series, and that is exactly what you need to do in a World Cup."
The former hooker was under no illusions about the scale of the task. Rennie's side opened his tenure with Nations Championship wins over France (34-32), Italy (47-17) and Ireland (40-21), but Fitzpatrick warned that would count for little in the cauldron of a Bok series.
"South Africa are quite clearly the best team in the world at the moment, no question," he said. "The way we played against France and Italy will not be good enough to beat South Africa. You are not going to get fat and lazy in Rassie's team, I can tell you that. If you are not performing, there is always someone else."
Former Wales and British & Irish Lions fly-half Dan Biggar expects a genuine clash of styles, with New Zealand's ball-in-hand approach running headlong into South Africa's suffocating defence.
"How will this attack in shape, with all the passes, the carries, the two, three playmakers, match up against the best team in the world and a team who are just looking to come up with line speed and shut that down," Biggar said on his Biggar Thinking podcast, calling the Springboks "the best team in the world by a country mile at the minute."
Springbok World Cup winner Schalk Burger, meanwhile, questioned whether the All Blacks can sustain the ferocity a Bok series demands across four weeks.
"Tackle success rate is one, and also, do we have that ability to have the intensity and line speed all the time? That's a different challenge," Burger said, arguing New Zealand had not been truly stress-tested by France or Ireland during the Nations Championship.
