Bledisloe Cup 2026, Match 1

 

The Build-Up

Before this match these two teams most recently both played South Africa, with wildly different results. 

New Zealand lost a series, 3-1, in South Africa, to what we might call the Bokke senior side. Essentially everyone on the pitch had multiple World Cup winner's medals and about a million caps (neither part is quite true, but looking at the team sheets you get that impression). Gradually, as the attrition wore more severely on the All Blacks, the matches went from an All Black victory to a close Boks' win to a bit of a hiding in the final test. Although this isn't the place, I think the Kiwis will have learnt more from this than the South Africans. They know the areas where they have to improve, and despite the results getting worse, we saw them improve in some of them during the series, and as they have time to really develop systems I expect to see bigger improvements over the next year. I'm not sure the Bokke have much more they can wring out of their players.

Then came a match in Australia against what we might, pretty fairly, call the Junior Springboks. Two of these players were names that, even if you only have a passing acquaintance with international rugby you'd recognise: Marx and Etzebeth. A few more were names that you might recognise if you're a more avid follower of the game: Esterhuisen and Libbok for example. Most of them, I think ten, were players that I, a self-proclaimed rugby tragic, had basically never heard of though. That's not to say that they're going to be bad, Rassie has a history of putting out these experimental teams and thrashing all comers, but not this time. It was supremely close in the end, but Australia roared out to an early lead, then held on for dear life and maintained Kiss' undefeated start to his tenure as head coach.

The New Zealand public and press, not known for the hyperbole and over reactions at all, had taken away the lesson that their ability under the high ball was awful. I thought that was a terrible conclusion. It's definitely not up to the standard of the South African kick chase work and needs to be looked at, but the Bokke have been masters of this part of the game for over a decade, and while they might be in an arms race with France now, after this year's Men's Six Nations and the dramatic improvement we saw for Les Bleus there with Bielle-Biarrey, Ramos and Attisogbe at the back, plus a new strategy for supporting players, they’re still first or second in the world with the next batch some distance behind them. New Zealand have improved, even before this match, you could see that across the RGR series, and they’re definitely better than last year. There's a group of teams, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Fiji, possibly England, possibly Wales, who are reasonably close, jostling for position from third to ninth, and I would say that the All Blacks have probably moved from near the middle of that pack to near the top. We might have a better idea of the pecking order after the Northern Leg of the Nation's Championship. Australia are not in that pack, although over the first set of Nations Championship matches they showed signs they might be getting close to the "possibly England, possibly Wales" group.

Meanwhile, the Australian press and public, equally reserved and calm, were sure that they were going to break the 24 year drought of winning the Bledisloe, the fortress Eden Park record and everything else - after all, they'd just beaten the Springboks! The fact it was a much weaker side than the one the All Blacks faced, conveniently overlooked.

The Match Itself

The match seemed to start well for the Wallabies, a string of early penalties, and a reasonably early try. Maybe alarm bells should have been ringing because in their first attempt, two attempts in fact, because they got a second bite at the cherry due to an offside penalty, the All Blacks repelled them from both 5m lineouts. The second time they did so legally and cleared their lines. But, after the first of a number of dubious calls from Andrew Brace (there's a surprise), albeit one that had no impact on the game, the Wallabies found a gap and ran through to score under the posts. Sadly for anyone in Green and Gold, that seemed to galvanise the men in black, two very nice tries and a penalty later, all of which involved DMac cutting loose and some very optional tackling, it was 17-7 and it looked like a number of the Wallabies were trying to play touch football in the park whilst the All Blacks were playing at something close to the intensity they'd shown against the Bokke.

That wasn't quite it for the Australians, a late burst of penalties saw them piggy-back up the field and score just before half-time, putting some hope back into the team and their supporters.

Then came the second half. 

If I had to guess I would suggest that Kiss said something like "more of the same, lads, that try at the end there, we're on out way back!" Meanwhile Rennie was pointing out little ways to tighten things up. I don't know what the possession and territory stats were like in the second half, but over the whole game the Kiwis had 15 entries into the Wallabies 22, the other way it was only 6. The Kiwis lost possession 13 times, the Wallabies only 6 - and I don't think anyone except the most insane critic would be saying that the All Blacks had a problem with dropping the pill. It was a sensible level of errors, low even, for the amount of ball that they had. There were odd passes that were a bit astray and were knocked on, a tap back from a kick that bounced just in front of a player and he couldn't gather it up, that kind of thing, nothing egregious. It felt like the Wallabies just never saw the ball. That's not entirely true, but I know at one point the in-game coverage put up a last-10 minutes possession stat and it was 90% All Blacks. It felt like that was the whole of the second half. 

This led to a five tries to one rampage in the second half. The Wallabies scored with about four minutes to go and one of the fans I'm in a WhatsApp group said "Last Try Wins! That will do me." He hadn't realised that Will Jordan hadn't scored yet, and with 79 minutes on the clock, it was a game of rugby, so Will Jordan scored and took that consolation away. Final score: 50-19.

Whilst stats should always be taken with a pinch of salt, my go-to pair of stats tell a story this time. Both teams have, basically, the same points per entry into the 22, 3.3 for the AB, 3.1 for the Wallabies. In test rugby, between 3.0 and 3.5 is about what you expect so neither coach will be worried by these numbers. Top-flight domestic rugby is usually a bit higher, around 3.3 to 3.8, test players are fitter so defences are better. The difference between the teams in this match boils down to entries into the 22, 15 for the Kiwis, only 6 for the Aussies. 

Now, there were lots of things that contributed to this imbalance. The All Blacks kicked, by eye, much further, except their box kicks which were point-perfect to be competitive. They got about 150 more post-contact metres and a lot more line breaks. None of those stats are definitive, of course - at least one of their line breaks was in their own 22, Beaudy got a load of post-contact metres when he juked around evading three tacklers starting 5m out from his try line. The AB cleared to touch after both of those. And this really illustrates why I like the points-per-entry and entries in the 22 combination. Every other stat, you can’t tell where on the pitch it occurs. Even territory, you don’t know if that’s faffing around between halfway and the 10m line, or thundering into defenders a few mm away from the try line. However, entering into the 22, it’s called the Red Zone for a reason. Everything steps up in intensity, because a single defensive mistake could be a a try. So tracking those becomes more meaningful. Equally, points per entry measures, directly, offensive efficiency, but implicitly, defensive efficiency too - if the numbers are low here (in the first SA v NZ match, the Bokke had only 0.7 points per entry, a terrible return, due to the staunch defensive efforts. It will be a long time before I forget Jordy stripping the ball from Marx after he’d crossed the try line.)

It might not tell the coaching team how to get their side into the opposition 22 more, how to stop the opposition getting there so often (for the Wallabies), nor what you did to achieve those things (for the AB), but it’s a good measure of what you did wrong, or right. 

Overview

Was it all doom and gloom? Not quite. The Wallabies started by stealing the first two All Black throws. It looked to me as if the All Blacks changed their calling system, because basically the rest were fine; one other throw went astray. The Wallabies only lost 1 of 13 throws. Both sides scrums were perfect, according to the stats. From memory, the AB gave up a free kick, I think that was it.

Sadly, that feels like it in the positives column for Australia. The All Blacks ruled the kicking game. They weren't perfect, but close to it, and their decision making and execution of their kicks was exemplary - there was one error I can remember in the whole 80 minutes. For the Wobs, wobbly at best - they did have good moments, but a lot of poor choices, poor execution, and the like, under-20's matches have better kicking displays than this. 

McReight had a couple of good turnovers at the breakdown, but they were both when Brace had awarded advantage to the All Blacks, so the ref just marched them back across the field to the earlier offence. There are times when that could be good - on the try line it stops a certain try and forces play back to a lineout that, early in the match looked wobbly. But both times it allowed the AB to get closer to the try line, which is a less good deal. Having his turnovers taken away like that seemed to demoralise him, and I don't remember him getting a turnover, either direct or a penalty, after that moment. For a long time the Kiwis have had players who are aware of the referee's arm out against them, put less effort in to trying to win turnovers, wait for the call of "advantage over" and pounce. He needs to learn that skill.

For the All Blacks, many positives. There were a few moments in the second half, all strung together, when the Wallabies seemed to be trying to make chances and finding space. Beauden Barrett had possibly the best five minutes of his long, glorious career, popping up on both sides of the field, showing his insane speed, and at one point swooping in, grabbing the ball, evading three tacklers in about five metres and giving his support players time to get back and bail him out. He also just took the ball away from a chasing Jorgensen and took a kick inside his 22 about three metres from touch, looked at the charging Wallaby and threaded almost to the other 22 straight down the line, cool as a cucumber. Arguably three tries saved in five minutes. Jordy Barrett was immense. Easily the best on the pitch, arguably the best 12 in the world at the moment. They need to look at their set piece still, but their aerial game is much improved (although against the Wallabies is not the sternest test). Their breakdown work was great - and that is a sterner test. 

They also ran a system with three playmakers. We're used to seeing 10 and 15 swapping - we see France do it, we've seen NZ do it, we've seen the Bokke do it, notionally England do it. In this game, for the first time in ages, they went back to their traditional game, and 10 and 12 also mixed up the playmaker role - first and second five-eighth as they call it. This all seemed to run very smoothly for them and never caused an issue for anyone except the Wallabies defence.

Fortress Eden Park remains intact, and after the pain of the South African tour, the smiles are back on the All Blacks' faces.

They seem to still have issues at the set piece though, which definitely need to be addressed. After those first two lineout loses, I think the lineout went ok, but not better than that, although their maul defence was good, and they were strong in attack too. Their scrums were solid, but Australia are not a fully fired up South Africa, who probably await in about a year's time.

Final Thoughts

Just as the matches against two vastly different South African teams produced vastly different reactions in these two neighbouring nations, I'm fairly sure that this result will too. 

That will be as overboard as those initial reactions. Yes, it was great that the Wallabies stood up and beat a vastly weakened Springboks, but they were vastly weakened and it didn't give any metric to compare to the All Blacks series. Likewise, the All Blacks have a long series of works on from their series, and - without casting undue shade - it was clear that they've spent time working on their kicking and kick chase game. But being much better than the Wallabies, who have been probably the worst tier one nation for all of the last decade and more? Not necessarily that impressive. 

In the final analysis, the All Blacks comfortably beat a side that they were supposed to comfortably beat. That they did this with a long, long injury list, even though many of the replacements are familiar old heads - when you cross out Love and Mo'anga, so you play DMac and Beaudy at 10 and 15, that's hardly a loss of quality and definitely not a loss of experience - makes it more impressive. They also showed that they've been working on some of their weaknesses from the RGR series, which is good. They might only have been facing the Wallabies, sorry to any Australian fans, but only is fair after facing the full-strength Bokke in South Africa, but the ABs had good systems and good execution of those systems in place. Practicing against a real opposition, in a real game, is always harder than doing it in training and getting those reps in against Australia will help them sort out the wrinkles before they face better teams further down the road. 

The Wallabies have to show that they can respond to their first setback under Kiss. A victory might be too much to ask for, but they need to improve. I’ve been impressed by Kiss, and he’s got a core of players who respond well to him as a coach. Winning next week might be beyond them, honestly it probably is, but a decent 80 minutes, even in defeat, rather than only turning up for 40 minutes is required.