A New Zealand pundit has shared his fears that the All Blacks will be in for a tough tour of South Africa after a humbling home defeat to Argentina in the opening round of the Rugby Championship.

The first round of the Rugby Championship saw the Springboks open the tournament by powering over the Wallabies for their first win in Brisbane since 2013, before Los Pumas feasted on an error-prone All Blacks side in Wellington.

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After a re-match with Argentina in Auckland, the All Blacks will tour South Africa and play two Tests against the Springboks at Ellis Park and Cape Town Stadium.

Having beaten the All Blacks by a record margin in a World Cup warm-up and then won the World Cup final, the two-time world champions could potentially go for four wins in a row against their rivals for the first time in their professional history.

Rugby Run co-host Mark Watson believes that South Africa’s exit from Super Rugby – and NZ Rugby’s All Blacks resting policy – has contributed to the poor performances at Test level.

“We kill and we bastardise Super Rugby, we are resting and rotating our All Blacks because we want them fresh,” host Watson said on SENZ Radio. 

“It apparently is a performance enhancer. Can someone show me the evidence of how rest and rotation in Super Rugby has been a performance enhancer for this All Black team over the last five years? All it’s done is continue to erode Super Rugby.

“But if we’re going to put all our eggs in the All Black basket, and we’re going to kill NPC, and we’re going to kill Super Rugby. We’re going to kill our sevens opportunities the Olympic Games, then this All Black team needs to win. There are no excuses. That performance last night was absolutely dreadful.

“Where’s the improvement going to come from? How are we going to turn this around? Because I saw a South African team last night play Australia, and they should have probably put 60 points on that Australian team,” he added. 

“They are going to absolutely murder us in South Africa.

“I’ve never, ever bought into this mantra, oh, you know, the fear of the All Blacks is gone. Well, I’m now starting to believe that perhaps the all around the All Blacks has gone.”

Photo: @Springboks/Twitter

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Src: sarugbymag.co.za