Rennie warns All Blacks of Springboks’ formidable squad depth

Dave Rennie says South Africa’s exceptional strength in depth gives the Springboks a significant advantage over his All Blacks side before the two teams meet in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.

The New Zealand coach highlighted South Africa’s convincing Nations Championship victory over Scotland as a clear illustration of the options available to Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus.

Rennie said the All Blacks were still developing, with a new coaching staff and a number of inexperienced players learning how to work together. By contrast, he believes South Africa can make sweeping changes to their team without a substantial drop in quality.

“We’re a new side. We’ve got a lot of new staff. We’ve got quite a lot of new young players. So we’re learning a lot,” Rennie said on Friday at a welcoming event for the All Blacks at Cape Town Stadium.

“We’re well aware of how tough this challenge is. They’re double world champions. Rassie has a hell of a lot of players, 46 players maybe.”

South Africa’s performance against Scotland was particularly striking for Rennie because Erasmus significantly altered his line-up, yet the Springboks still produced a dominant result against a side he described as excellent.

That result, he said, underlined the difficulty of preparing to face South Africa, whose depth allows them to rotate players while retaining a high level of performance.

“The team they put out against Scotland, there was a lot of changes. Scotland were an excellent side. But they [the Springboks] won convincingly in the end. So we’re well aware of the task in front.”

Rennie also praised Erasmus for the work he has done with the Springboks, describing the South Africa coach’s impact in highly complimentary terms.

“He’s done a phenomenal job here, Rassie.”

The All Blacks travel to South Africa after completing an unbeaten run in their three Nations Championship matches on home soil. That sequence has provided New Zealand with positive momentum, but Rennie has remained cautious about what it means ahead of a series against the reigning double world champions.

His comments reflect the scale of the challenge facing New Zealand as they begin their South African adventure. While the All Blacks arrive with confidence from their results at home, Rennie regards the Springboks as the benchmark in world rugby and believes their unusually large pool of proven players could prove decisive.

The contrast between the two squads is central to the contest. New Zealand are attempting to build a new team around a recently assembled staff and several young players, while South Africa have demonstrated that they can change personnel extensively and still defeat high-quality opposition convincingly.

For Rennie, the Scotland match offered the clearest recent evidence of that advantage. The All Blacks will therefore begin the series aware that even an altered Springboks line-up is capable of delivering a major performance.