New Zealand are three matches into an eight-match tour of South Africa, badged Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry, which runs from 7 August to 12 September 2026 and ends with four Tests against South Africa. It is the first full All Blacks tour of South Africa since 1996, and it exists because The Rugby Championship has moved to a biennial format, freeing a southern-hemisphere window for bilateral touring for the first time in thirty years.
Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry splits in two: four matches against South African franchises, then the four-Test series that decides it. The All Blacks have won the first two, beating the Stormers 38-21 in Cape Town and the Sharks 54-0 in Durban.
Full schedule
| Date | Match | Venue | Kick-off (SAST) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri 7 Aug | Stormers 21-38 New Zealand | Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town | FT |
| Tue 11 Aug | Sharks 0-54 New Zealand | Hollywoodbets Kings Park, Durban | FT |
| Sat 15 Aug | Bulls v New Zealand | Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria | 7.00pm (6.00pm BST) |
| Sat 22 Aug | South Africa v New Zealand — 1st Test | Ellis Park, Johannesburg | 5.00pm (4.00pm BST) |
| Tue 25 Aug | Lions v New Zealand | Ellis Park, Johannesburg | 7.00pm (6.00pm BST) |
| Sat 29 Aug | South Africa v New Zealand — 2nd Test | Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town | 5.00pm (4.00pm BST) |
| Sat 5 Sep | South Africa v New Zealand — 3rd Test | FNB Stadium, Johannesburg | 5.00pm (4.00pm BST) |
| Sat 12 Sep | South Africa v New Zealand — 4th Test | M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore | 11.00pm (10.00pm BST) |
Results so far
Stormers 21-38 New Zealand — Cape Town Stadium, Friday 7 August, the opening match of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry. The All Blacks’ opening run-out, and the only tour match so far in which a South African side has scored more than a converted try.
Sharks 0-54 New Zealand — Hollywoodbets Kings Park, Tuesday 11 August. The Sharks were held scoreless, the heaviest result of the tour to date.
Across the two Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour matches so far, New Zealand have a points difference of +71. Every score is on the results tab, updated automatically as matches finish.
Next up: the Bulls at Loftus
The Bulls host New Zealand at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday 15 August, kick-off 7.00pm SAST. It is the last of the three Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry franchise fixtures before the Test series opens at Ellis Park a week later, and the last chance for a South African side to land a blow before the Springboks take over. Team news and live score on the match page.
Why this tour exists
Before Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry, bilateral touring between the two countries stopped after 1996, when New Zealand won a three-Test series in South Africa 2-1 — the first side to win a series there. Since the launch of the Tri Nations that same year, meetings between the sides have almost entirely been annual championship fixtures, home and away, one match at a time.
The Rugby Championship’s shift to a biennial format opened the gap. The tour was confirmed on 16 October 2025, with the fourth Test scheduled for a neutral venue in Baltimore — announced in January 2026 — taking the series to a US market both unions have been pushing towards.
The four Tests
The four Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Tests are the longest series between the two nations in the professional era. Two are in Johannesburg — Ellis Park on 22 August and FNB Stadium on 5 September — with Cape Town Stadium taking the second Test on 29 August and Baltimore closing the tour on 12 September.
A women’s fixture between South Africa and New Zealand is scheduled as a curtain-raiser at FNB Stadium on 5 September.
How to follow Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry
Fixtures, kick-off times and live scores for the whole tour are on the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry fixtures page, with finished matches on the results page. Both update automatically from our match data, so this page stays current as the tour runs.
Why the All Blacks are playing franchises
Four of the eight Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry matches are against South African franchises rather than the Springboks: the Stormers, Sharks, Bulls and Lions, all four of them United Rugby Championship sides. That structure is the point of a tour rather than a Test series. Before the professional era, touring sides played their way through a country over two or three months, meeting provincial teams between Tests, and a tour was judged on the whole itinerary rather than the Test record alone.
Those midweek games disappeared once the calendar filled with annual championships, and Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry is the first tour to bring them back at scale. They vanished once the calendar filled with annual championships. Their return here gives four South African squads a match against the All Blacks that they would otherwise never get, and gives New Zealand something no Test window provides: three or four fixtures to work through a wider squad before the series starts.
Why one Test is in Baltimore
The fourth Test on 12 September is at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, a neutral venue roughly 8,000 miles from either union. It was added in January 2026, three months after the tour itself was confirmed, and it takes the series into a US market both unions have been pushing towards. It also makes for the tour’s one awkward kick-off: 11.00pm South African time, 10.00pm in the UK.
For South African supporters it means the series could be decided in a stadium on another continent. For the tour, it is the clearest signal of what Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry is being built into — a property that travels, rather than a fixture that belongs to one calendar.
Sources: allblacks.com and SA Rugby Magazine.
