All Blacks tour win heightens competition for test places
Rugby Union – New Zealand tour of South Africa – Sharks v New Zealand – Kings Park Stadium, Durban, South Africa – August 11, 2026 New Zealand’s Tupou Vaa’i in action REUTERS/Rogan Ward
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DURBAN, Aug 11 : Competition for test places in the New Zealand squad was heightened by an emphatic 54-0 win in their second tour game on Tuesday, with a clinical performance against the Sharks pleasing coach Dave Rennie.
The All Blacks are on a six-week, eight-match tour of South Africa with four matches against provincial opposition and four tests in the first of its kind in 30 years.
After starting with a far-from-convincing showing against the Stormers in Cape Town on Friday, the All Blacks proved devastating against the Sharks with eight unanswered tries, plenty of pace and few mistakes despite the cold and wet conditions.
Rennie has said he aimed to give all of his 44-man squad a run-out over the first three games and after hammering the Sharks, added that the battle for places in the first test side against the Springboks on August 22 was heating up.
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“We’ve now had five games this season and I think we’ve got a lot better understanding of the game we’re trying to play,” said Rennie, referring also to last month’s Nations Championship wins at home to France, Italy and Ireland.
“We’ve got a lot more people who have got good time and so we shared the load a bit, but there’s a really good competition for spots, and so I think that’s really important heading into the tests in a couple of weeks.
“We’re trying to build; however, the conditions probably made it challenging to shift a lot of ball, but I thought overall, we did a pretty good job out there and on the back of a really solid defensive effort,” Rennie added at a press conference.
“Look, we got a lot more in us. We can’t afford to start games like we have in the two games here and so that’ll be a focus for us. In the first 40 minutes, we gave away a lot of penalties early and just didn’t build enough pressure for long enough.
“But the second half was excellent. We kicked really well. A lot more clinically. We continued to defend well. Yeah, they obviously kicked a lot of the ball, which we generally dealt with well. It wasn’t always perfect, but we got a lot of reward from good work.”
The All Blacks next meet the Bulls in Pretoria on Saturday.
(Editing by Christian Radnedge)
Source: Reuters
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