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Why New Zealand’s tour of South Africa could reshape modern rugby
In the short, sharp world of modern rugby, New Zealand and South Africa have ripped up the form book: the long, old-school tour is back.
The normal All Black schedule of hotel, gym and stadium, with the odd coffee shop visit thrown in, has been swapped for more than five weeks of rambling relatively slowly across South Africa.
Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour is already rolling in South Africa, with three out of the four midweek games played by New Zealand against provincial teams, before four Tests, including a money-spinning final game at the home of the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens in the United States. The tour will return to New Zealand in 2030 and is changing modern rugby.
A majority Māori and Pacific All Blacks squad shows how far rugby’s ‘greatest rivalry’ has come
This weekend’s first test between the New Zealand All Blacks and South African Springboks will be played 105 years after the two nations first began the “greatest rivalry” in rugby in 1921.
A great deal has changed in that time, including the composition of All Blacks teams and the players’ eligibility to tour the formerly apartheid republic.
In 2026, well over half the squad of 44 have Māori or Pacific ethnic backgrounds.
That would have been impossible 66 years ago when the 1960 All Blacks team toured South Africa. In fact, only 18 of the current squad would have been able to travel back then.
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Greatest Rivalry tour: New Zealand in South Africa is rugby's next chapter
New Zealand are unbeaten in the warm-up games on their tour of South Africa
That is what separated South Africa and New Zealand in the 2023 Rugby World Cup final, as the Springboks went back-to-back to become the first nation to win the tournament four times.
Rassie Erasmus' world champions sit top of the rankings and have also won back-to-back Rugby Championships. They are indisputably the game's dominant force.
Their predecessors as rugby union's supreme team were the All Blacks, who won their own back-to-back World Cups, in 2011 and 2015.
The landscape may have changed and their roles may have reversed of late, but they remain the game's most glamourous and marketable teams.
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