Murray Mexted urges New Zealand to control possession against Springboks

With the All Blacks' historic tour of South Africa set to get underway in just over two weeks when New Zealand take on the Stormers in a warm-up match at the Cape Town Stadium, both nations are shifting focus on how to get the upper hand.

The Springboks will travel to Argentina for a tough match against Los Pumas on the same weekend, with a two-week break before they take on the All Blacks in the opening Test of the tour.

New Zealand will prepare for the showdown with games against three South African franchises and will follow up the game against the Stormers with clashes against Sharks and Bulls.

Plenty has already been said about how the series might play out, with plenty of focus being placed on the Springboks' recent dominance of the Test rugby arena, as well as the fact that they have won five of the last Tests between the two sides stretching back to 2023.

However, Mexted says too much emphasis is being placed on the results of the match rather than what led to those outcomes.

"I think possession is bloody important, but there's no journalists that I read in our newspapers that talk about possession, how significant possession is," Mexted told the DSPN podcast.

"We went to South Africa, we won 41% of the ball and 42% of the ball and we got beaten.

"Everyone talks about us getting beaten. Why did we get beaten? Well, we got beaten because we didn't win enough ball. If you don't get the ball, you don't score points."

He also warned the All Blacks to pay special attention to the additional challenges that come with playing Test rugby in South Africa.

"You can't go to South Africa and have all those outside influences that exist in South Africa. Don't say they don't because they do. There's outside pressures that don't exist anywhere else in the world," Mexted said.

"Altitude's a big one. Environment's another big one. And the third one is you're playing against big men, big men that win possession, and they base their whole game on winning the ball and having the ball and smashing the opposition and putting the ball up in the air.

"They play a different type of game. They say, 'We will monster you in Africa.'

"And that's what they've been doing for bloody decades. They're not going to stop now. That's their game."

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