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Jason Pine: The All Blacks must use last night as fuel

Author
Jason Pine,
Publish Date
Sun, 14 Sept 2025, 1:49pm
All Blacks Ardie Savea stands dejected after their loss during the Rugby Championship - New Zealand All Blacks v South Africa test match at Sky Stadium, Wellington. 13 September 2025. © Copyright image by Marty Melville
All Blacks Ardie Savea stands dejected after their loss during the Rugby Championship - New Zealand All Blacks v South Africa test match at Sky Stadium, Wellington. 13 September 2025. © Copyright image by Marty Melville

Jason Pine: The All Blacks must use last night as fuel

Author
Jason Pine,
Publish Date
Sun, 14 Sept 2025, 1:49pm

First things first, congratulations to South Africa. What a performance - and in particular, the second half was as good a 40 minutes as I can remember from any team on our shores, maybe ever.

They were on another level, and the All Blacks simply had no answers.

We all know that sometimes you just get beaten by a better team. That happens. And no team in the world would have lived with the Springboks last night.

But the major concern was the manner of the defeat, it was a second half capitulation and there's no other way to describe it. 36 unanswered points.

The word capitulation doesn't belong in the same sentence as the All Blacks. Sometimes, another team just has a worldie, and that's what the Springboks did after half-time - but the base level required by the black jersey is that you play until the end.

And as the points mounted, it looked very much from the sideline as though some of the men in black gave up. Like they just wanted to get down the tunnel and out of there.

We're constantly told by those in the All Blacks environment that the black jersey demands excellence, and that's what the legacy of this team is built on.

Care for the jersey, awareness of its history, a desire to enhance it while you're in possession of it.

Very few players enhanced the jersey last night.

If we're looking for a shred of consolation from this, we can perhaps get it from what happened at Albany in 2017. The All Blacks beat South Africa 57-0 that night.

Two years later, South Africa were world champions, and four years after that they were world champions again

The All Blacks simply must use last night as fuel. Those guys have to remember what last night felt like and allow that to drive them on and to make sure they never, ever, ever have that feeling again.

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