Dave Rennie has named his All Blacks team for the third Test at FNB Stadium and dropped 110 caps from the matchday squad. Three forwards change, the backline does not move, and the reason is a lineout, not a scrum.
Codie Taylor is not in the 23. Not benched. Out.
The All Blacks team for the third Test, named in Johannesburg on Thursday, moves three forwards from the side beaten in the 33-26 defeat in Cape Town, and the biggest of them is a hooker with 110 Tests who started both matches of this series and is not in Saturday’s matchday squad.
Asafo Aumua starts. Samisoni Taukei’aho takes the bench. Sam Darry starts at lock with Fabian Holland dropping to the reserves, Peter Lakai starts at six, and Wallace Sititi gets his first Test involvement of the tour as loose forward cover.
The backline and its cover do not move. Including Josh Moorby, who sat on the bench for eighty minutes at DHL Stadium and never got on.
If you would have kept Taylor and dropped Moorby, say so in the comments. The case for doing it the other way round is below.
Call it before you read the rest. Winner, margin, and the exact score if you are feeling brave.
Add a winning margin for points
The All Blacks team for the third Test
Starters, Test caps in brackets.
- George Bower (28)
- Asafo Aumua (24)
- Tyrel Lomax (53)
- Tupou Vaa’i (49)
- Sam Darry (10)
- Peter Lakai (12)
- Luke Jacobson (29)
- Ardie Savea (111), captain
- Cam Roigard (22)
- Ruben Love (10)
- Leroy Carter (9)
- Jordie Barrett (83)
- Quinn Tupaea (28)
- Will Jordan (59)
- Damian McKenzie (79)
Reserves.
- Samisoni Taukei’aho (44)
- Xavier Numia (3)
- Fletcher Newell (39)
- Fabian Holland (14)
- Wallace Sititi (21)
- Kyle Preston (3)
- Anton Lienert-Brown (92)
- Josh Moorby (3)
Out of the 23 from Cape Town: Codie Taylor, Simon Parker, Patrick Tuipulotu. Ethan de Groot and Josh Lord have both been cleared after their head knocks at Ellis Park and have been given the week to recover rather than rushed back. Cortez Ratima is the only player in the squad unavailable through injury.
Read also: the 23 Rennie named for Cape Town, where two HIAs picked the pack. This time he picked it himself.
Taylor was dropped for a throw, not a shove
Every scrum argument of this tour has been about the front row, so the temptation is to read Taylor’s omission as a scrum call. It is not.
New Zealand won every scrum on their own feed in Cape Town. What they did not win cleanly was their own lineout. Rennie’s number, given in the press conference afterwards, was 18 thrown and 15 won.
He did not dress it up. “A couple of those were a little bit scrappy,” he said. “Well, obviously they had a pretty good plan. We’ve got to be able to adjust how they’re defending our line out and so yeah it’s a work on.”
Three lost throws sounds survivable until you look at where they came. Two of the five moments that cost New Zealand were their own lineout, and South Africa’s first two tries were built off a driving maul, where Jason Ryan timed the maul defence at two seconds late.
A hooker’s afternoon is judged on both ends of that. Taylor threw the ball, and then he was part of the wall that arrived late.
Watch Aumua at the first lineout on Saturday. A hooker who trusts the call walks in square and throws on the jumper’s first step. One who does not takes a half-step towards the touch judge before he lets it go, and every lock in green reads that half-step from fifteen metres away.
So the man who gave Rennie the 54th-minute change that turned Ellis Park starts, with 44 caps of Taukei’aho behind him. That is a different kind of bench hooker. Taukei’aho carries like a loose forward and hits the maul like one, which is the job description Cape Town wrote.
Darry for Holland is the change nobody asked for
Holland scored at Ellis Park, played the full eighty in Cape Town and started the move for Leroy Carter’s try there. Only Savea scored higher among the forwards on the ratings, and he goes to the bench.
Read that as management rather than a demotion. Darry, 26 and a Blues lock with ten caps, wins his 11th on a hard, dry track at 1,750 metres where the second row spends the last quarter chasing kicks it would rather not.
Holland at 19 can give an hour if the game asks for it. Tuipulotu gave eighteen minutes in Cape Town and drops out of the squad altogether.
Peter Lakai at six is the more interesting call, because Simon Parker did nothing wrong. Parker held Jasper Wiese to 11 carries for 21 metres.
But Lakai’s 29 minutes off the bench produced three breakdown contests, and the referee on Saturday is Nika Amashukeli, who stands over the ruck and rewards the legal jackal quickly. Rennie has picked the flanker who gets his hands on the ball for the referee who lets him.
Sititi’s first Test of the series
Wallace Sititi missed the tour opener with illness and had knee surgery in January. His last Test against South Africa was the 43-10 defeat in Wellington a year ago. He comes in at 20 with Lakai promoted, and between them New Zealand have swapped one defensive blindside for two ball-carriers.
That matters because of the number Tamati Ellison put on Tuesday’s training session. New Zealand beat 40 Springboks tackles in Cape Town and lost. “We’ll double down on that this week,” the assistant coach said, “and hopefully nail some more of those opportunities.”
The counter-case is the one this site made on Monday. New Zealand emptied seven of eight replacements at DHL Stadium and were still beaten in the last twenty, and the reserve who did not move was Moorby.
He is at 23 again. A Test decided in the final quarter at altitude, and the outside-back cover is the same three-cap wing who was not trusted with a minute of the last one.
What Rennie said
Tupou Vaa’i plays his 50th Test at lock alongside Darry. “Tupes is a top man. It’ll be a special day for him and his family and additional motivation for us,” Rennie said in the announcement.
On the series: “With both teams heading into the third Test one apiece, there’s everything to play for on Saturday. The team that doesn’t win this weekend can’t win the series. That’s the kind of challenge we love to rise to.”
He also had a line for the crowd. “We’ve really felt the support not only from our travelling army of Kiwi fans and fans here in South Africa, but also the New Zealand public back home.”
Nothing about the scrum. After a week in which Rennie took the Springboks set piece to World Rugby and Rassie Erasmus called the complaint nonsense, the omission is deliberate. Kieran Read says the Springboks scrum is legal, and that is the bad news for a pack that has not changed a prop.
What happens next
Kick-off is 5.10pm at FNB Stadium on Saturday 5 September, which is 4.10pm in the UK and 3.10am on Sunday morning in New Zealand. Live on Sky Sport in New Zealand, Sky Sports in the UK and SuperSport in South Africa. The Black Ferns play the Springboks Women at the same ground at 1.30pm, the first time the two have met on South African soil.
South Africa named first. Erasmus has gone back to the front row he first picked, with Ox Nché, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw starting, Cheslin Kolbe at fullback and Kurt-Lee Arendse back on the wing.
The Springboks starting XV carries 958 caps. New Zealand’s carries 606.
Win, and the fourth Test in Baltimore on Saturday 12 September is for the series. Lose, and it is for a draw. For the full run of results and dates there is every fixture, result and kick-off time in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry.
Read next: the Cape Town ratings, where Taylor got a 6 and Preston a 7.5 for nine minutes. The bench marks told this story before the team sheet did. And if you want the case for why Saturday matters more than any World Cup game, Stephen Donald rates two wins in South Africa above a World Cup.
Your turn
Rennie has dropped a 110-cap hooker for three lost throws and kept a wing he did not trust with a single minute. One of those is the brave call and one of them is the safe one. Which is which?
