Eden park - Rassies Moment of Reckoning upon him

So, Dr Rassie has brought a lot of smiles to us as a nation with two world cups, two championship and a lions series. He has taken a team that was seventh in the world to bring them back to the top of the pile.

It has never been smooth sailing under Rassie and one can see that he is definitely a gambler that pulls out all of the tricks when it comes to match day. As his teams performance, has it every been convincing, has actually built a team that in invincible like the Mallet boks or the Graham Henry era or even the Eddie Jones England run. The short answer is no.

Luck Rassie should be more known for Mr 7up, Or lucky 7. That is all Rassie needs, 7 wins in a row to win a World Cup. Beyond that and the wheels come off. Not completely.

Rassie had a gold opportunity this year to extend his record of seven runs and then his team blew a 21 point lead with 40 min left in the game.

Why is this game at Eden park so telling. This will be the boks only 3rd tour of New Zealand. Hard to believe it, but had it now been for Covid, probably had a few. They played in Japan, Australia, England, South Africa and France.

Rassie latest run against them of 4-0 was in England, France and South Africa. France tend to be a good hunting ground for the boks when it comes to world cups.

However, when it comes to NZ, he has only won 1 game and drawn 1.

Even Argentina has won more than 1 game in New Zealand and so did Ireland. Ireland achievement being a 2-1 series win in New Zealand back in 2022.

Has that invincible aura of New Zealand faded.

On the line is a 50 match unbeaten run at Eden park and the last time the boks came close was back in 1994 when they played to a draw.

For all of the World Cup success, this will be a watershed moment for the Rassie boks to finally nail their credentials to the post as this decades greatest team.

Rassie boks should aim for a 2-0 win ratio, but listening how Rassie speaks, it looks like he would be happy with one win or none at all.

These are the places that came up through the ranks with Rassie at the stormers. Kolisi, Etzebeth, Pollard, Kolbe, De Allende, Pieter Steph and then Malherbe and Kitshoff were all age group players at WP when Rassie first started his journey as director of rugby.

Now these players are in the finals stages and can they muster up two more games.

Let's be honest, this is no longer the same New Zealand team. They no longer own their home ground advantage and other teams have done better in NZ and even on some occasions smashed them at home.

I would expect nothing else from the Rassie boks.

If Rassie can't win 2 0 with one of the most experienced bok team of all time with close to a 1000 caps then I would say that his time is up.

A big factor tomorrow will be how the NZ 9 goes.

Everybody is talking up how he's a noob and like the 4th or 5th choice. It seems unanimous that somewhere between their injury woes at 9, and their poor performance under the high ball, is where we'll find a win.

I'd perhaps agree with that, if I felt that we had parity up front. But I don't think we do. We just don't have good ball carrying forwards and we have been horrendous at ruck time this year. Our lineouts are...well, you guys saw.

Marco and Marx are our two best ball carriers tomorrow. And it's not something they're particularly known for. Kolisi is better at linking than anything else and between Eben, PSDT, Nortje...we don't really have guys that can smash through and get yards.

It's very clear that the Boks will want to play a game so slow it threatens to rip apart the time-space continuum.

They'll want to drop bombs on the Kiwis in the hopes that their poor high ball form continues.

But I do wonder what happens if the is are better under the high ball tomorrow.

I do t feel like we'll muscle NZ backwards. With DDA and Jessie in midfield, we can be almost certain that nothing of note will be created there. I just can't see where we actually bring a credible threat.

What I do know is the NZ maul is functioning well, their lineouts are better than ours, we might actually be slightly behind them in the scrum and we are certainly nowhere near their capability at the ruck.

Is anyone here able to tell me what the Boks are clearly doing well this year?

I actually can't think of much. I feel like we're worse at everything than we are 12 months ago.