The South African leg of the Greatest Rivalry is over and the focus now shifts to Baltimore, Maryland for the final game. Bulls Skills coach and former Wizard of the Week Kennedy Tsimba believes there has been a change in the first three Tests.
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The Springboks have not only gotten better at what they do best – applying set pressure and finishing from the opposition’s 22 – but also in their speed to adapt to those changes of possession that lead to ‘broken play’ scenarios.
What follows are Tsimba’s observations from the third Test at Calabash and a chat with legendary 101-cap South African back Willie le Roux, who has been the key ‘brains’ on the field behind so much of the Springboks’ success at the last two World Cups.
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How the Boks learned to manage the shift
KT: The first test left us with an interesting question. What happens when the game moves away from the structure we have prepared for?
By the time the third Test was played, another question arose:
Have the Springboks simply improved their execution or have they become better at adapting when the game has changed? That distinction is important.
Because adaptability is often talked about as an instinct or attribute of great players. But if we can recognize that this is happening in the game, perhaps we should ask the more uncomfortable coaching question: can we actually coach it?
In considering the third test, especially through the lens of displacement theory, two moments stood out.
24:26 – Opportunity recognition
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) September 9, 2026
NB: The All black people have won the line-breaking and goal-try battle in the first two games, scoring nine tries to four and converting 50% of their line-breaking chances compared to South Africa’s 33%.
The All Blacks didn’t have to wait until they got into the opposition 22 to take advantage of the attacking moment, as they converted almost half of their tries from situations outside the opposition 22. How the Springboks responded to the All Blacks’ line break was always going to be a key factor in the outcome of the game in Soweto.
KT: New Zealand are deep in attack when they fail to secure the ball, leaving it exposed. What I was interested in was not simply that Ethan Hooker ended up playing the ball. Almost instantly he had to switch from defense to recognizing opportunities in attack.
The picture has changed. His response included reaction speed, perception and decision making. Instead of waiting for the referee or the defensive structure to dictate his next move, he quickly asked if he could play the ball and then acted immediately.
It was a small moment, but it contained many of the elements we associate with adaptability: recognize, interpret, decide and act. There was no time to reset the image. The player had to interpret the new one.
56:40 – Collective adjustment
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) September 9, 2026
NB: Kick-offs are key psychological moments in the game and are often a great measure of a team’s maturity, how quickly they can regain focus and mentally reset. A team that scores a goal tends to unconsciously relax and this vulnerability can be exploited.
In this case, the Springboks go straight for the throat with a short kick straight down the middle for the 6ft 4in Hooker to contest. Four stages and less than a minute later, they crossed the line for the score.
KT: Hooker wins a contested restart with a tap-back. At that moment the original image changes.
Peter Lakai and Jasper Wiese had to adjust immediately to the new position of the loose ball, and Springbok eight Wiese seemed to react quicker, winning the ball back and starting a sequence that ended up being South Africa’s most decisive swing of the game.
Again, the outcome isn’t the only interesting part. The important question is: who was the first to recognize the shift? Players could not simply execute their plans on restart. The loose ball created a new problem and the players had to reorganize their behavior around it.
One moment was an individual player who recognized an unexpected opportunity. Others required players to collectively adapt to the changing picture. Both are examples of what I mean by a shift, a moment when the game moves away from what can be controlled and the players must interpret what is now in front of them.
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What has changed for the Boks?
KT: Looking at the second and third Tests, the evidence suggests that the Boks have not eliminated uncertainty. They got better at navigation. They seemed to play more to their strengths: their set-up, their kicking, their ability to compete for set-pieces and use the outside backs in those wide spaces.
Rugby matches are not necessarily decided by who controls each moment. They can decide who will react best when the expected picture changes.
Springbok veteran Le Roux is now among Tsimba’s charges at the Bulls, and provides a player’s perspective on these key issues.
When the game suddenly becomes unstructured, what are you looking for?
WLR: I first look at the penultimate defender, judging if that player is slow or fast. From there I start looking outwards and what space might be available there. Bok scored two tries in this way, testing the penultimate defender’s ability in space.
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) September 6, 2026
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) September 6, 2026
Do experienced players recognize these moments differently?
WLR: I believe experienced players tend to have more time on the ball because they have a better level of pattern recognition to work with. Younger players, by comparison, will often try to make a play on their own at first.
Can adaptability be developed through training?
WLR: I firmly believe that it can be developed through training, and it should be trained much more! The more often players find themselves in similar stressful situations, the better their anticipation and reaction will be. The key is to create the right drills that allow players to experience these scenarios more often.
Have the Bucks adapted differently throughout the series?
WLR: I felt the Boks adapted better to their strengths in the second and third tests, particularly through their set pieces, kicking, tackling ‘cuts’ and the way the outside backs used space. In the end, I felt we won the key moments.
CT: Willie’s perspective raised an interesting question about the value of experience.
Maybe the experience doesn’t actually give the player more time. Perhaps this allows them to use the same amount of time differently.
An experienced player can recognize something familiar in what at first seems unpredictable. That recognition can make the next decision faster. And this is where the conversation begins to move beyond tactics and into cognitive performance.
Can adaptability be trained?
This is becoming a great personal area of study for me. I take a deeper look at cognitive performance in rugby and the relationship between perception, anticipation, reaction and decision-making when the game becomes unpredictable.
The question is whether adaptability is something we simply hope players will acquire over years of playing, or whether we can develop it intentionally. Willie le Roux believes we can. When asked if adaptability can be developed through training, his answer was unequivocal.
That opens up a bigger coaching issue. If we want players to become better at adapting, should we simply tell them to adapt, or should we create a training environment where they constantly experience situations where the original picture changes and they have to recognize and interpret and respond to them?
Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between experience and deliberate practice. Boxing provides us with a fascinating case study as we can see behavioral improvements only in the RGR series.
But seeing adaptability is not the same as understanding how it can develop. And that may be the next frontier of shift talk. Can we intentionally create experiences that enable the development of adaptability in training?
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The ongoing conversation has raised some fascinating questions ahead of a Rugby World Cup in 12 months. Can a mature team, with a relatively high average age such as South Africa (31 years old), learn quickly enough to stay ahead of their rivals a year later? Are the All Blacks, who are about three years younger on average in the current series at 28, on a faster development cycle ahead of the showpiece event in Australia? Or for that matter France, who comes in a year younger, at 27?
Which lower-level competition equips players to better manage shifts in play – the Super Rugby Pacific in the south or the URC and Champions Cup in Europe? In the recent past, when South Africa still part of Super Rugby, there would only be one answer. But the waters may have muddied since then, and the sands in the battle for the equator are also shifting.