Quietly Confident or Completely Delusional? - 2CGD S5 EP22

We are officially sitting on the precipice of the Greatest Rivalry Tour — South Africa versus New Zealand — and, quite frankly, everybody is starting to lose their minds. The All Blacks are in South Africa. The tour is happening. The hype machine is fully operational. And with the first Test still a good few weeks away, we have reached that wonderful stage where there is almost no actual rugby to analyse, so naturally everybody is just speculating about absolutely everything. The South Africans, in particular, are talking an extraordinary amount of shit about how dominant they're going to be. In some quarters, the All Blacks have already been written off completely. And then you've got people like Tony, who for reasons that may or may not be grounded in reality, are starting to feel... quietly confident. Is that confidence justified? Is it delusion? We'll find out soon enough. Until then, this podcast is basically speculation about speculation, followed by some more speculation, as everybody gets increasingly worked up about a series that hasn't even bloody started yet. There is, however, some actual rugby to talk about. The All Blacks take on the Stormers this weekend in the first little taste of the Greatest Rivalry Tour. What sort of team do the All Blacks put out? What do the Stormers look like without their Springboks? And why, despite all of that, are we still weirdly nervous about it? Meanwhile, the Boks are just popping over to Argentina for a casual one-off Test against a slightly depleted Los Pumas side — which, let's be honest, they will probably absolutely rinse. But all of that is merely the entrée. The real thing is coming. The All Blacks are in South Africa. The Springboks are waiting. The shit-talking has begun. The nerves are building. The optimism is getting dangerously high. It's stressful. It's exciting. And it is officially on like Donkey Kong.