Rugby Championship 2019 Preview – Saturday, July 27th at 8:35 am
The Kiwis are up and running in the tournament having won their opening match. It was not the great show of power from them as was expected against outsiders Argentina though. They will get a much stiffer challenge this week against South Africa. This is going to be a fight for the title with the Proteas having won their opening game too.
New Zealand v South Africa Odds*
New Zealand 1/4
South Africa 3/1
Draw 28/1
* (betting odds taken from bet365 on July 22nd, 2019 at 1.00 pm)
Can New Zealand beat South Africa?
The Kiwis banked a 20-16 win over Argentina in Buenos Aires in their opening game of the 2019 Rugby Championship. It was a bigger struggle than they expected. The All Blacks were really under some heavy pressure in the first twenty minutes of the second half of the game. That was the period in which they got their only try of the match. Impressively the Pumas kept New Zealand off the scoreboard in the second half but just couldn’t deliver the final blow to pull off a famous victory.
So the All Blacks, who are the favourites for this year’s World Cup, survived a gruelling trial. That was their first match of the calendar year, so maybe could be excused. But they will be demanding a much higher standard form themselves. They will need it as they face South Africa. The teams only play each other once in this season’s Championship because of it being a World Cup Year. In last season’s Rugby Championship, South Africa earned a dramatic 36-34 win over New Zealand in Wellington.
New Zealand v South Africa Head to Head
The two traded away wins in last season’s Championship. After South Africa had taken a tremendous 36-34 success in welling, the All Blacks claimed a 32-30 win in Pretoria to get a bit of revenge. The head to head though is all with the All Blacks who have won seven of the last eight meetings between the two nations. In the last decade, they have met 22 times, with New Zealand winning sixteen of those.
Can South Africa stop the All Blacks again?
The Springboks did the business in the opening round of this season’s Rugby Championship. They came up big with a 35-17 home win over Australia. That leaves them top of the pile on points difference over the Kiwis. So they will likely have the Championship title in their hands, their first-ever Rugby Championship crown at that, if they were to pull off a repeat of what type managed last year in Wellington. They were just superbly consistent from the first minute to the last against Australia.
Herschel Jantjies ran in a couple of tried in the game with Elton Jantjies coming up big with the boot, nailing five kicks out of five. So the Springboks were a good match for New Zealand in last year’s Championship. Despite beating the Kiwis last year, the Springboks had to settle for second place in the table with only a W3 L3 record on the board. It has been three wins in their last five games now for South Africa after taking victories over France and Scotland in November last year.
Predictions
The Springboks had the Kiwis stressed last year in their Rugby Championship meetings. However, you can’t help but feel that the All Blacks will be just that little bit sharper than they were a week ago. They should be better for having gotten than a game out of the way and they showed some mental strength in grinding out the win in a difficult situation. This may well be another close match and a South Africa +10 handicap looks stacks of value at 10/11 odds* (betting odds taken from bet365 on July 22nd, 2019 at 11:23 am).
