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Springboks warned about All Blacks’ brutal breakdown tricks
The Springboks have been given some valuable intel by the South African franchises, particularly around the contest at the breakdown, ahead of the opening Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series against the All Blacks at Ellis Park on Saturday. playerbros.org
On their tour so far, the All Blacks have fronted up against three of South Africa’s four United Rugby Championship teams, namely the Stormers, Sharks and Bulls, winning all of them over the last two weeks. They face the Lions next Tuesday.
The Springbok management would have watched those games closely and also quizzed the respective franchise coaches – John Dobson (Stormers), JP Pietersen (Sharks) and Johan Ackermann (Bulls) – about what they had learnt. On Tuesday Bok assistant coach Felix Jones revealed they had, indeed, learned a great deal.
Some of the clean-out actions of All Blacks players at the breakdowns in the matches against the franchises have raised concerns in the Bok camp.
‘Tucked shoulders’
“A lot of what the franchise coaches experienced was confirmation of what they expected and what we saw in the Nations Championship … around the way they [the All Blacks] attack and the way they defend and what they do with their kicking game.
“But there were a couple of things that caught them out and a couple of things trended across the feedback, like around the breakdown where they experienced tucked shoulders going in, like the reverse arm type of wrapping action. That was a consistent theme that was coming out.”
Jones, in what may also be part of the mind games being played ahead of the first Test, continued: “I don’t think it is something we have seen from them (the All Blacks) over the last few years. But definitely from the feedback we have got from the franchises there is an element of that in there.
“We are all for the physical side of the game, as everyone is aware. Whatever word is associated with it, we want it to be within the law. We are just aware of that going into the game.
‘Stay within the laws’
“Look, I don’t want that to be written down as a controversial thing, but we’ve coached against Glasgow and Australia when Dave was there … and I think the word brutal has already been mentioned. That does follow his coaching around.
“There are some amazing pieces to his play, to his coaching, to the way they get their ruck speed going. But we just think that the number one priority is safety.
“So, we are just super aware of the feedback we did get back from the franchises that there were a number of clear actions, and we want to be sure that the brutality and the physicality stay within the laws.”
The first Test is Saturday, with kick-off at 5.10pm. Both teams will be named on Thursday.
Live score: Mamelodi Sundowns vs Marumo Gallants
LIVE UPDATES
37’ ⚽️ Substitution: Mdunyelwa comes in for the injured Mudau.
33’ ⚽️ Save! Sikhakhane’s diving header is denied by Williams.
32’ ⚽️ Yellow card! Khoza is booked for a challenge on Ndlondlo.
25’ ⚽️ Big save! Lako denies Bennet Mokoena’s powerful shot!
21’ ⚽️ Goal! Khoza hits a powerful volley after a corner rebound. Sundowns 1-0 Gallants.
16’ ⚽️ Williams saves Otladisa’s shot. That was Gallants’ first dangerous attack.
15’ ⚽️ Bicycle kick! Leon with the spectacular attempt but it goes straight into Lako’s hands.
12’ ⚽️ Long range strike! Aubaas with the effort that flies high! Sundowns 0-0 Gallants.
10’ ⚽️ Kabo Yellow’s fast tempo forces Gallants into a deep block.
8’ ⚽️ Luthuli fouls B.Mokoena. Sundowns win a freekick from 30 yards.
4’ ⚽️ Save! Basadien’s new post shot is saved by Lako!
1’ ⚽️ Kick off! We’re underway at Loftus!
Mamelodi Sundowns’ starting line up: Williams, Mudau, Khoza, Kekana, Basadien, B. Mokoena, Allende, Aubaas, Matthews, Mailula, León
Substitutes: Goss, Mvala, Modiba, Ndlovu, Rayners, Mkhulise, Zwane, Mdunyelwa, Letlhaku.
Marumo Gallants‘ starting line up: Lako, Rikhotso, Madiba, Sikakane, Ncube, Ndlondlo, Luthuli, Manaka, Mabuza, Kunene, Otladisa
Substitutes: Mlambo, Mphambaniso, Sikhosana, Lukhele, Dhludhlu, Button, Moletshe, Marebane, Mkhwanazi
The fixture was originally scheduled for 1 August. The game was postponed after Sundowns requested time to mourn the tragic passing of midfielder Jayden Adams.
Now, Masandawana have an opportunity to make up their game in hand. They aim to climb from seventh place while putting pressure on the early league leaders.
Sundowns remain unbeaten in their opening two league matches. They started with a thrilling 3-2 victory over TS Galaxy before being held to a 1-1 draw by Kaizer Chiefs.
Also read: How much FC Copenhagen paid Sundowns for Maseko
Their attacking threat remains strong, with Cassius Mailula among the players leading the charge. However, head coach Miguel Cardoso will demand greater defensive discipline after his side conceded five goals in their last three competitive matches.
A victory at home would give the reigning African champions a major. It will move them closer to the top of the Betway Premiership standings.
MARUMO GALLANTS WINLESS START
Marumo Gallants, meanwhile, have endured a difficult start under head coach Phuti Mohafe. They sit 14th on the log with just one point after a goalless draw against Kruger United and a 3-1 defeat to Stellenbosch FC.
Gallants are still searching for their first victory of the campaign and face a daunting challenge against the reigning African champions.
Despite being underdogs, they will hope the additional preparation time created by the postponement can help them produce an upset at Loftus Versfeld.
Élections au Nigeria: «L'enjeu principal, c'est la situation économique et en particulier le coût de la vie»
Au Nigeria, coup d'envoi officiel de la campagne électorale pour les scrutins présidentiel et législatif. Les 360 députés de la Chambre des représentants doivent être renouvelés. Les électeurs nigérians sont aussi appelés à choisir leur futur président. 19 candidats sont pour l'heure en lice parmi lesquels le chef d'État sortant Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Décryptage du contexte et des enjeux de ces scrutins avec Élodie Apard, chargée de recherche à l'Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), affiliée au laboratoire Unité de recherche migrations et société (Urmis) à l'Université Paris Cité.
Mallett: Boks’ mind games cleverly done
Nick Mallett believes the Springboks have won the war of words with the All Blacks ahead of the first Test at Ellis Park on Saturday.
The build-up to the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series opener has featured plenty of off-field sparring, with the All Blacks accusing South African teams – including the Boks – of intentionally slowing the game down to negate New Zealand’s high-tempo approach.
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus responded at Monday’s press conference, where he was joined by Bok technical adviser and former Test referee Jaco Peyper, who offered a detailed breakdown of what actually happens once a referee marks a scrum or lineout.
MORE: Peyper shuts down ‘slow down’ talk
On Tuesday, Bok assistant coach Felix Jones added to the debate by raising concerns about the legality of some of the All Blacks’ tactics, based on feedback received from the South African URC teams who faced them on tour.
“A couple of things caught the franchises out and a couple of themes were consistent across the feedback [we received],” Jones said.
“One was around the breakdown, where they experienced tucked shoulders going in, which the franchises weren’t happy with, and a reversed-arm non-wrapping action.
“The other was that the franchises were actually quite happy with the opportunities they created, getting into scoring positions around 10m out, with multiple lineout opportunities there, but they were frustrated they couldn’t score from the driving maul.
“It’s tough when there’s someone pulling or trying to lift a leg or going off their feet. Those were probably the two main themes.”
ALSO: Ex-All Black enjoys Rassie’s ‘thug life’ approach
Mallett believes the Boks have responded effectively to the All Blacks’ attempts to influence the narrative around Saturday’s Test.
“There’s been a bit of a phoney war, a lot of mortars lobbed over out of the trenches at each other and, ironically, using the media to get your points across,” the former Springbok coach said on the Talking Boks podcast.
“It’s been a very interesting build-up. The All Blacks started quite early by saying South African teams tend to slow the ball down. They want to go from set-piece to set-piece. That’s not the game we’d like to show the world. We want to show our skills, running rugby, ball in play, all that sort of stuff.
“Then there was a lot of quiet from the Springboks for a while. I think for about a week they were sort of digesting what the All Blacks were saying.
“Then this week there were some very cogent comments made by Felix Jones and by Rassie himself, not directly contradicting the All Blacks, but putting out points themselves that were factual. I think that was really very effective, utilising the media.
RASSIE: Media used to get message to refs
“I know that the coaches can’t get together, or if they do get together, there are certain things they don’t want to say to the referee in front of the other coach. So, as Rassie said, the only way is really just to raise points in the media and hope that the referee, TMO and assistant referees will take note of it.
“Obviously, the comments the Boks have been making have been around the maul defence, around cleanouts at the ruck – in particular, the tucked shoulder, taking players past the ball to enable the pick-and-go to become much easier.
“It’s been quietly but cleverly done.
MALLETT: All Blacks very good at dark arts
“I think also the comments about the Springboks taking too long – the fact that they came out with stats from the last five games where, from the moment the referee makes the mark of the scrum or the mark of the lineout, you have 30 seconds to come in, and the Springboks have always been within those 30 seconds.
“So those are the laws, and the Springboks stick to those laws. I think that’s a very good riposte to the comments that have been made by the All Black coaching staff.”
Photo: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
The post Mallett: Boks’ mind games cleverly done appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
The Speech that Moved GSPORT21: Monya Greyvenstein in Her Own Words
Before she thanked a single colleague, sponsor or friend on the biggest night of her professional life, Monya Greyvenstein asked the room to hear her in isiXhosa. The founder of She Moves Rugby was named Woman in PR and Sponsorship at the 21st gsport Awards at the Wanderers Club in Illovo, Johannesburg on Saturday, 8 August 2026, and became the first winner of the night to take the mic, hands shaking, speech on her phone.
“Ndibulela kuThixo kuqala. Ndiyakholelwa ukuba uThixo uyibekile le nto entliziyweni yam, kwaye ndenza umsebenzi wakhe.”
2026 Woman in PR and Sponsorship Award winner, Monya Greyvenstein
“I thank God first,” she began. “I believe that God placed this in my heart, and I am doing His work.”
The language was no flourish. Greyvenstein grew up in the rural Eastern Cape, practically raised, she says, by Xhosa women, and the words were spoken in their honour. That grounding travels with her into every boardroom and team room she enters on behalf of the women she serves.
The award recognises her work elevating South African women’s rugby through PR, sponsorship and advocacy, and the all-female agency she leads, which represents Springbok Women players including Ayanda Malinga, Jakkie Cilliers, Catha Jacobs and Maceala Samboya.
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For Greyvenstein, rugby has always carried something bigger than the scoreboard. She calls it a massive comeback story that represents hope, and she saw it up close when her Oom, a farmer from a community that never used to watch the women’s game, started asking after Aseza Hele, his favourite Springbok Women star during the World Cup.
“You end up standing up from the couch, even if you don’t like to see women play rugby.”
Her own road to that stage was anything but smooth. In Potchefstroom she built an entrepreneurial life, running a gym and a gin bar, before a difficult season saw both businesses close, leaving her to start over.
Rather than rebuild what was lost, she asked herself what she had always wanted to become, and the answer was a rugby agent. She wrote the accreditation exam and jumped the gap.
The welcome was brutal. Feedback on multiple exam applications dried up while sittings came and went, and days after she finally wrote and passed, a complaint landed her a disciplinary hearing she was not permitted to attend. The verdict eventually cleared her, offering only a slap on the wrist for a wrong she had not committed.
She admits she contemplated walking away from the thing she loved most. Instead, the isolation of that season showed her what women in the game carry every day, and gave her the name of the agency she would build, a daily creed for anyone who feels stuck.
“Just every day doing something to keep moving will eventually build enough momentum to cause a lot of movement.”
She Moves Rugby was born so that no woman player would face that industry alone. The proof of the posture came with Cilliers’ landmark move to Toulon in July 2026, a deal Greyvenstein closed across a language barrier with a French giant wary of agents, by refusing the very thing agents are assumed to chase.
“What I want is for you to trust me, to build a relationship with me and to actually introduce me to your network,” she told the club, declining commission on the deal. Toulon responded by offering to pay the agent’s commission on Cilliers’ behalf.
That is the spirit she takes into boardrooms, where her argument is that women’s rugby is not underfunded but underestimated. She has watched product deals turn into real money the moment a male Springbok entered the conversation, and she points brands to Adidas, whose incentive framework rewards all athletes in the same currency, as the standard the market has already proven.
She fights hardest for the forwards whose physiques carry the team but are told they do not ‘fit the brand’, insisting that authenticity is the asset. A rugby player who looks like a rugby player, she argues, sells more truth than any painted picture, and her real followers buy what she represents.
The 2025 Rugby World Cup opened doors, and Greyvenstein is honest about how many conversations with global brands started. But the hype died down after the final whistle, and the postulated the long-term investments never came. That gap is precisely where her work now lives, pursuing the contacts the tournament surfaced, until they sign.
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“We cannot think that progress is equality,” she says, returning to the line at the heart of her acceptance speech.
Progress, for her, has a plain definition. Development is a word South Africa cannot use while a Bok Women player trains after a day job, carries a household as breadwinner and pays for her own recovery, and Greyvenstein does not believe the game will be properly developed until women are paid to focus on rugby alone.
Asked what she would change, the answer came without pause: Get girls’ rugby into schools and clubs, because boys learn the game from under nine, while girls first pass a ball at 21, and no coaching structure can close that gap at Test level.
It is a commission she hands to everyone within reach, and one she clearly considers hers first. The purpose placed in her heart on the road from the Eastern Cape to the Wanderers stage is still being worked out, one deal, one player and one moving day at a time.
Main Photo Caption: gsport Woman in PR and Sponsorship winner Monya Greyvenstein at the 21st gsport Awards at the Wanderers Club in Illovo, Johannesburg on Saturday, 8 August 2026. Photo: Sachin du Plooy-Naran Photographer / gsport
Photo 2 Caption: Greyvenstein leads She Moves Rugby, championing sustainable careers for Springbok Women players. Photo: Paul Mukwevho / gsport
Photo 3 Caption: Greyvenstein challenges brands to see that women’s rugby is not underfunded but underestimated. P Photo: Sachin du Plooy-Naran Photographer / gsport
The post The Speech that Moved GSPORT21: Monya Greyvenstein in Her Own Words appeared first on gsport4girls.