When the Springboks have just played Argentina at home and all the talk is about their heroism and commitment, then you know how far they’ve slipped. When the All Blacks have put nearly 50 past Australia in Sydney, then it all adds up to a year where it will be business as usual in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship.

SuperSport studio analysist Nick Mallett said after Saturday’s first round of fixtures that New Zealand was 20 points better than all the other teams in this year’s competition.

They may be even more than that. Saturday produced a comedy of errors in both games – both South Africa and Argentina in Nelspruit and Australia in Sydney – but the ones that came against the Kiwis were forced.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dramatic comeback gives South Africa Rugby Championship victory <a href="https://t.co/UpsBoU6n7o">https://t.co/UpsBoU6n7o</a> <a href="https://t.co/KHIYMiIu7p">pic.twitter.com/KHIYMiIu7p</a></p>&mdash; FRANCE 24 (@FRANCE24) <a href="https://twitter.com/FRANCE24/status/767072996892610560">August 20, 2016</a></blockquote>

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The All Blacks started with a new midfield combination, new flyhalf, new captain and new faces elsewhere in their team in comparison with when they signed off the last four year cycle against the same Wallaby side in the 2015 World Cup final. The Australians, by contrast had a much more settled team.

But it was Kieran Read’s team that applied all the pressure, from the beginning to the last, and under that pressure the Wallabies simply spat the dummy.

The All Blacks are supposedly rebuilding, but if what they did at the weekend was achieved during a rebuilding phase, then pity the teams they are going to face when they have completed the rebuilding stage.

How much are they rebuilding though? All Black coach Steve Hansen did make an interesting point in the build-up to the game. He pointed out that although he had new players, almost all of those players still managed to boast 30 international caps or more.

Take the brilliant Beauden Barrett for example. It is only now that he has been thrust into the role of recognised first choice pivot subsequent to the departure of the legendary Dan Carter, but he was a regular fixture in previous All Black teams as a substitute and occasionally as a starter.

It wasn’t as if he had to completely adjust to international rugby, like South Africa’s Elton Jantjies is having to do, and his excellent performance against the Wallabies was a triumph for succession planning.

Jantjies was again good in parts and bad in others in the Nelspruit game, and it can still probably be said of him that he has yet to really take control of an international match the way he has sometimes done for the Lions in Super Rugby.

Jantjies has been around in first class rugby for a while now, and made his international debut as long ago as 2012. And yet before this season he only had a handful of caps and in a sense was thrust into the deep end when he was called on to come onto the field when Patrick Lambie was injured at Newlands in June.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">HIGHLIGHTS: breathtaking <a href="https://twitter.com/AllBlacks">@AllBlacks</a> demolish <a href="https://twitter.com/qantaswallabies">@qantaswallabies</a> 42-8 in Championship opener in Sydney <a href="https://t.co/2ykQfsc3kY">https://t.co/2ykQfsc3kY</a></p>&mdash; TheRugbyChampionship (@SanzarTRC) <a href="https://twitter.com/SanzarTRC/status/766998818839670784">August 20, 2016</a></blockquote>

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Of course it isn’t difficult to spot one of the essential differences between the All Blacks and the Boks – there are several – which is that the Kiwis do boast continuity when it comes to coaches.

Steve Hansen was in charge of the last four year World Cup cycle, and before that he worked with Graham Henry for eight years. So did Wayne Smith and some of the other back room guys still involved.

So they don’t face the situation now that the Boks do where there is a new coach who may rate players differently to what his predecessors did. Heyneke Meyer didn’t help Allister Coetzee with the way he ignored Jantjies, and Lions players in general, during his stint.

There are better players who played then who are injured now, but had Meyer been certain he’d be carrying on in the next cycle, he may have made more of an effort to spread his net and at least give Jantjies more opportunity.

Peter de Villiers, Meyer’s predecessor, said at the end of his four years in charge that he regretted not giving players of the future more chance to gain experience when the opportunity presented itself rather than just treating the team as a closed shop.

Maybe he has a point, and maybe the current coach is paying for lack of continuity between cycles.

If you were honest, you’d have to admit that Coetzee’s tenure has been poor up to this point. He does boast three wins in four starts, but it could so easily be one in four were it not for the heroic fightbacks in Johannesburg against Ireland and this past weekend.

Come to think of it, they nearly lost in Port Elizabeth too. And they haven’t played the world’s top teams yet.

The world’s top teams, on current evidence, would be New Zealand and England, with the former way out in front. England were held to close games when they beat Australia, but they did win those games on foreign soil (how often do the Boks win in Australia?), and have to be seen to be ahead of the following bunch.

How that bunch is ranked will be found out in the next few weeks when the Boks go to Argentina and then Australia. It goes without saying that a massive improvement is necessary if Coetzee’s first Championship is not to teeter on the brink of becoming a disaster.

Argentina were better than the Boks for long periods at the Mbombela Stadium, and until the final minutes, it was like the Ireland series, with the South Africans showing flashes of individual brilliance rather than playing like a team.

When they won, it once again – and this is an impression that goes back to long before Coetzee’s tenure – felt like it was achieved by accident rather than being the product of great teamwork and planning.

However, having said that, there were areas of positive improvement. The bench was brilliant and had a profound influence on the game, but it was the scrumming that tops that list.

When you get your scrumming right against Argentina, and the Boks were dominant there at the weekend, then you know that is an area of your game that could be a major force for you going forward.

Blindside flank Oupa Mohoje also came through his litmus test with flying colours, though maybe we should hold off on that line that he has now proved himself to be the man to take the Boks forward in that position.

Saturday’s was just one game, and you’d probably find that the All Black management expect a player to play several good games before you put a tick next to his name and say “Right, this is our man”.

There is a lot of comparison here with the All Blacks, but so there should be. The first round of the Championship confirmed again that they are the team to beat and the team to aspire to.

Not that it should be a major surprise, for their senior rugby is very strong. South Africans got excited about the Lions in Super Rugby, but the Kiwis have four teams as good if not better. That’s a lot of playing depth to choose from.

WEEKEND RESULTS

Australia 8 New Zealand 42
South Africa 30 Argentina 23