Nations Championship: Lessons from round three - and how the All Blacks stacked up
Tuesday, 21 July 2026
ANALYSIS: The All Blacks combined brain and brawn to beat Ireland 40-21 at Eden Park on Saturday.
It wrapped up a satisfactory July for new coach Dave Rennie, whose influence is becoming clearer with each test.
Here are the key topics that emerged from the last weekend of tests in the southern series of the Nations Championship.
All Blacks trajectory check: it’s ticking upwards
Trajectory, direction, or the just the “vibes”. No matter how you describe it, New Zealand Rugby clearly felt the All Blacks had lost their way under Scott Robertson.
Dave Rennie was appointed to correct the course and NZ Rugby will be feeling pleased with their decision after the impressive win against Ireland.
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Rennie typically doesn’t give too much away, but even the coach couldn’t disguise his contentment at Eden Park on Saturday.
No doubt he’ll find enough in his test review to make him grumpy again, but Rennie’s face on Saturday was that of a coach who saw things on the field against Ireland that they had been working on in training.
So, the “vibes” have improved, but can we measure that? Yes.
The four ways the All Blacks improved in July
High ball work, attacking shape and cohesion, introducing fresh faces and finding a new No 10.
That’s not a small list to tick off, but the All Blacks made progress in each key area during July - particularly against Ireland.
Their high-ball work is unrecognisable - they clearly won that area against Ireland with their new strategy of having the catcher run back and contest the high ball.
The attacking shape takes time because they are trying to overload defences with numbers and that requires the backs to move in sync - but that started to click against Ireland.
In Mike Blair’s’s system, the All Blacks are effectively trying to make the second-last opposition defender make a poor decision - and they had some success against Ireland.
The new faces have hit the ground running, particularly Josh Moorby and Xavier Numia, so it suddenly feels like the All Blacks’ talent pool is deeper.
And as for Ruben Love, the All Blacks now have a No 10 who is perfect for the modern game, although the Hurricanes deserve an enormous amount of credit. He was nowhere near as complete last year.
Springboks’ scrum is biggest threat to All Blacks
South Africa’s 43-0 win against Wales was over as a contest inside 15 minutes.
The Springboks were 14-0 up but more importantly, their scrum had destroyed Wales in the first three scrums - twice on the Welsh feed.
The Springboks seem to be able to pick abut three different front rows and still dominate at the scrum, but they are at their most dangerous when man mountain Malcolm Marx starts at No 2, as he did against Wales.
The frightening Springboks scrum is clearly their biggest weapon. The scrum will decide the “greatest rivalry” tour, one way or the other.
All Blacks-Ireland rivalry is over - but they’ll make RWC semis
Ireland are still a competitive side, but if you follow their rugby closely you’ll know there is real concern about the quality of young players coming through the Munster system that previously produced Conor Murray, Peter O’Mahony and Paul O’Connell.
Ireland have become so reliant on No 9 Jamison Gibson-Park (he played 74 minutes at Eden Park even though he had a off night) because the alternatives aren’t compelling.
However, the plot twist is that they could well break their Rugby World Cup quarter-final curse next year as they are likely to face Argentina.
Los Pumas are all over the place at the moment, somehow losing 31-24 to an England team that collected four yellow cards.