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Pressure mounting on Boks to 'blow this All Black team off the park'
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New Zealand radio & media pundit Mark Watson believes that all the pressure is on the Springboks as expectations of a 4-0 series victory over the All Blacks mount in South Africa.
The world number one ranked Springboks side has won 26 of their last 30 Test matches heading into this series, including three of the last four over the All Blacks in that timespan.
Watson believes that the current run of success has built an expectation among their fans to wipe the floor with the All Blacks 4-0 across the Greatest Rivalry Tour, which he sees day-to-day all over social media.
“The pressure is on South Africa, because you’ve only got to hear all the stuff coming out and reading the comments and listening to their fans,” Watson told Martin Devlin on the DSPN network.
“They think they’re going to win this 4-0. They honestly believe this is the greatest South African team of all-time.
“Last year they probably had the greatest ever performance against us when they absolutely tanked us in Wellington.
“But we did beat them at Eden Park. Australia did beat them. World Cup final was only sort of a marginal point or so.
“I don’t think we’ve been well coached in the past, I think we play a different style of rugby to them. As I said, it’ll be interesting to see what they do to try and slow things down. But the pressure is on them.
“You know there is an expectation in South Africa for them to blow this All Black team off the park, and I think that in a funny kind of way just allows us to just walk quietly and carry on.”
However, should South African predictions of a 4-0 series whitewash come true, it would be the ‘worst case scenario’ for New Zealand Rugby as a whole that would bring wider implications.
Watson said that the entire system would need to be looked at and “rugby as a whole” in New Zealand would need to be changed, well beyond the All Black level.
“I don’t see this as a four test series,” Watson continued.
“I just see this as three Tests in South Africa. I’m not interested in the Baltimore Test.
“I mean, I want to win that, but I just want to win the series in South Africa, not the fourth one in Baltimore, which to me is an exhibition game.
“They’re the important parts, but yeah, the fallout would be just unbelievable [of losing 4-0].
“And this is when you would have to probably start putting some [responsibility] back on the players, the Players Association. I think we’d have to take a serious look at Super Rugby coaching pathways, the whole lot.”
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