The South African Rugby team have a demanding international season ahead that we have not seen the likes of before. A normal season includes anywhere between 13 and 16 matches, but generally of those matches 3 or 4 are not against the top teams. This year the All Blacks x 4 is the real test for both teams and are the stand out matches.
The reason for this 4 test match series plus all the mid week matches for the All Blacks is financial as the New Zealand Rugby Union is needing more cash. The reason is they have too much debt, too much staff which needs restructuring and too many players on bloated salaries. Last season the NZRU lost over $7.5 million which they can ill afford to repeat too often. South Africa along with Ireland are about the only two rugby unions making profit each season.
The Baltimore 70 000 seater test match in the US is sold out already with ticket prices ranging between $290 and $3439 so this has been a big success. The other 3 tests in South Africa will be sold out with many from New Zealand travelling for the Cape Town test.
South Africa play 13 matches and maybe 14 if the reach the final of the Nations Championship which is 6 Northern Hemisphere teams playing the 6 Southern Hemisphere teams in two pools during the months of June and November. This is an effort to try and align the international rugby window for both hemispheres having one rugby season.
The positives from this itinerary is that there is not the usual heavy travelling besides a trip to South America, Australia ,North America and Europe. The Argentinian match has a two week break between the New Zealand first test so that is not an issue for the players. Every match besides the Baltimore match in the US has decent breaks between them.
The SA team will definitely be rotating their team using anywhere between 45 and 50 players making sure they develop the squad giving the new players game time. This year is about having the strongest team possible for next years world cup. Yes they will want to win the matches and the England, Scotland and Wales matches will be seen as warm up matches even though they have the Barbarians the week before. The Barbarians match is seen as a friendly and should suffice in preparing for England which the SA team will want to make a statement win.
What normally happens is 2 teams are created blooding the youngsters mixed with experienced players for the lesser challenging matches. I can see this happening for the Scotland and Wales matches with a very strong bench of replacements if required. This way the coach can still give game time to his key players without really having to risk them if not needed. Not many other teams can do this due to having limited depth and why the team has developed a pool of 50 plus players because you need back up plyers due to injuries.
This should be a great season for rugby fans as there are very few dead rubber games due to the two pool international table. Some teams have a tougher schedule than others and both South Africa and New Zealand will be the better after their battles because this will shape their teams for next years world cup. This all kicks off in a month so these games will be a bumper filler to the World Cup football running between 10th June - 19th July.