The simplicity of their approach has so often been their strength, but there was just a hint in Auckland that some of their talismanic figures are perhaps now on the cusp of their respective career apexes, and that they couldn’t individually or collectively win enough of the critical physical battles on which their basic game plan is predicated.
The likes of Eben Etzebeth, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Malcom Marx, Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel remain fearsome prospects, but Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus has to be wondering whether these five and potentially others have enough juice in the tank to still be the foundations of his team next year and beyond, and whether an over-reliance on this cohort is going to lead to the strategic approach looking dated and limited.
What lies ahead for the Boks is a difficult process of working out when and how many new players need to be transitioned into the team, while having to decide how much variation they need to inject into their game plan so as they have something else up their sleeve other than smash, bash, kick.
The All Blacks, conversely, look to potentially be a team with significant upside and limitless possibilities about how they build themselves through to the next World Cup.
They had a similar over-reliance on box-kicking, but that was a deliberate tactical call rather than an enforced plan due to a lack of alternatives.
The single most important finding from their 24-17 win is that they now have confirmation that their young, athletic pack have the fortitude, size and sheer bloody-mindedness to bare-knuckle fight.
There’s some buff work required to get the pack polished and their scrummaging certainly needs a little fine-tuning, but there is a sense that the All Blacks are a beast that is awakening.
South Africa spent 80 minutes trying to grind the All Blacks into submission through the power of their ball-carrying and collision impact, and they just couldn’t find a way to build that relentless momentum on which so many of their victories have been built.
And that’s because the All Blacks have in their midst a number of emerging individuals who look destined to be generational players and leave a significant historical footprint.
Tupou Vaa’i has morphed into something that requires an R18 warning. He’s the stuff of nightmares now, a one-man horror show whose foreboding presence and quick wits make him the sort of player opposition forwards coaches will build specific plans to nullify.
He and Scott Barrett could be the world’s most athletic and intimidating locking combination by 2027, and with Fabian Holland having settled so quickly into test rugby and the perennially reliable Patrick Tuipulotu (currently injured), there is a cavalry to call upon from the bench.
The point is that all four are solid bets to be better players in two years than they are now, and maybe that’s the key difference between the All Blacks and Springboks – the former are a side with significant growth potential while the latter may have pinned their hopes to an ageing core of players who have no capacity to reinvent themselves.
The picture is just as optimistic for the All Blacks in the other two rows of the scrum, particularly the back three, where the combination of Simon Parker, Ardie Savea and Wallace Sititi delivered in line with the sum of its collective parts.
The All Blacks made a decisive call earlier this year to not pick Ethan Blackadder, citing that while the erstwhile Crusaders loose forward brought an impeccable work ethic, his impact was relatively low.
What’s become apparent now is that what they weren’t saying, which is that they believed they had in Parker someone with the capacity to produce high quantity and high quality, a point proven by the Chiefs man topping the tackle count at Eden Park.
The Parker-Savea-Sititi combination has plenty to work on, but first impressions were entirely favourable and, instinctively, this set-up feels like it’s the right one for the All Blacks to favour.
There’s a toughness and presence about that trio, but so too is there a genuine athleticism and ball-playing spark, and it is these bonus features that make the All Blacks a better bet to be a better team than the Boks by 2027.
It also has to be factored in that the All Blacks won at Eden Park with halfback choices number five and six and that number one pick Cam Roigard may have usurped Antoine Dupont as the world’s best No 9, come October 2027.
The All Blacks may endure a few losses and difficult nights over the next two-and-a-half years, but the guts of the story looks set to be one of regeneration and improvement.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.
