Three decades after New Zealand’s last full-scale tour of South Africa, the iconic All Blacks finally returned to the country’s iconic stadiums this Friday, but their opening tour match fell far short of the high expectations fans and analysts had carried for years. Despite closing out the fixture with a 38-21 victory over the Stormers, the final scoreline offered a misleadingly flattering portrait of a disjointed, ill-disciplined All Blacks side that had been favored to win by a minimum of 30 points.
The All Blacks got off to a promising start, with sharp, well-executed breaks from Peter Lakai and Leroy Carter setting an early tone. Hooker Samisoni Taukei’aho crossed for the tour’s opening try in the fifth minute off a driving lineout, and experienced playmaker Beauden Barrett added the conversion before nearly notching a try of his own, only to knock the ball on under heavy Stormers pressure. That promising opening quickly unraveled, however, as a cascade of All Blacks penalties pinned the side in their own half for 20 consecutive minutes. Three of those early penalties went to All Blacks tighthead Pasilio Tosi, all called for collapsing the scrum, exposing early struggles in New Zealand’s set piece that would plague the team for the full 80 minutes.
The underdog Stormers, a makeshift preseason outfit that had already lost several key starters, put in a gritty, defiant performance that outperformed most pre-match predictions. Twice the underdogs rallied to level the score, and the match remained tied 14-14 with just 13 minutes left to play. The tide shifted only when injury stripped the Stormers of their second scrumhalf, leaving the side with no remaining reserve backs to fill the gap. Forced to reshuffle their backline — with former sevens star Seabelo Senatla moving to scrumhalf and flanker Hacjivah Dayimani shifting out to wing — the patched-up Stormers defense was quickly exposed by the All Blacks, who ran in three tries in the final eight minutes to pull away to their final 17-point margin.
For the All Blacks, the match was marked by uncharacteristic chaos: three yellow cards for foul play, persistent struggles at the scrum and lineout, and a general lack of cohesion across the starting lineup. In front of a crowd of 47,130 that fell short of a sellout, the All Blacks notched six tries to the Stormers’ three, but the win only papered over the obvious gaps in their performance ahead of the highly anticipated test series against South Africa’s Springboks, widely regarded as rugby’s greatest modern rivalry, which kicks off in just two weeks. On the positive side for New Zealand, the side finished the match with no major injury concerns, seven players earned their first caps in the iconic black jersey this year, and two young prospects — prop Siale Lauaki and inside back Josh Jacomb — made their professional debuts off the bench.
It was two Stormers players who stole the show, however: 20-year-old flyhalf Yaqeen Ahmed, who turned in a remarkably composed performance in his first-class debut, and 39-year-old flanker Deon Fourie, a dynamic veteran who will turn 40 next month. Fourie’s second-half try, scored while the All Blacks were down to 13 men following two yellow cards, marked his second score against New Zealand; his first came in the 2023 World Cup final, where he played through a serious shoulder injury just months before tearing his ACL and spending more than a year recovering from ligament damage. Senatla also notched a memorable try for the Stormers after a disrupted start to the second half that saw the home side lose captain and center Ruhan Nel to injury, leaving them without any backline replacements left on their 6-2 bench.
The All Blacks’ inconsistent performance means few players have put forward a compelling case to earn a starting spot in the upcoming test series. New Zealand’s next tour match is set for this Tuesday against the Sharks in Durban, where the side will look to iron out the kinks before the high-stakes test series gets underway.