A titanic throwback tour: The All Blacks' 6-week South Africa trek with a Baltimore finale

Before the World Cup settled all arguments, rugby's world supremacy was invariably decided between South Africa and New Zealand.

Two former outposts of the British Empire improved the game that England invented, and used rugby to forge their identity and raise their stature on the global stage. The Springboks and All Blacks stopped dancing around each other in 1921 when South Africa arrived in New Zealand by steamship.

For the next 75 years, to the dawn of the professional era, the rugby tours to each other's shores were titanic in length and depth, and fervor and controversy.

On the 30th anniversary of the last traditional tour between them, the All Blacks are in South Africa, opening an eight-match, six-week expedition on Friday in Cape Town. They and the Springboks will cross the Atlantic for marketing reasons to play the fourth and final test match in the NFL home of the Baltimore Ravens.

“These are the tours we've only heard of,” Boks captain Siya Kolisi said when the tour was announced. “To experience this for the first time ... is unbelievable for us as a group.”

Two-thirds of the 88 total players across both squads weren't even born during the last tour in 1996. Kolisi was 5 years old. New Zealand captain Ardie Savea was 2. But they all know the history and its weight.

From the beginning, South Africa-New Zealand matchups set the standard for intensity and tension, enhanced off the field by respect and reverence.

The Springboks didn't lose a series anywhere from 1903 until 1956 in New Zealand. The period included their only series win in New Zealand in 1937.

New Zealand rugby officials crippled their team's hopes by bowing to the South African government's policy of racial segregation and blocking Maori players from touring the republic until 1970.

The lure of winning a series in South Africa outshone all other considerations for New Zealand players, including Colin Meads, acclaimed as the greatest All Black of the 20th century. He had two shots in 1960 and 1970 and was desperate enough to play two tests in 1970 with a broken arm.

“If you're ever going to play good rugby, you'll play it in South Africa,” Meads said in his autobiography. “There is always that feeling inside you, as an All Black, that THIS is what it has all been about, that THIS is South Africa and THESE are the players you most want to beat.”

But as uncompromising and bitterly fought the tours were in the apartheid era, so were the protests from the 1970s onwards which caused division and disruption on an unprecedented scale.

When apartheid laws were abolished in 1991 and South Africa was readmitted to international sport that year, the Springboks arranged their first match against, of course, New Zealand.

The All Blacks in South Africa enjoyed overwhelming support from Blacks but that diminished after Nelson Mandela backed the Springboks as South Africa hosted and won the iconic 1995 World Cup.

The All Blacks, losers in the 1995 final in extra time, returned the next year and finally clinched their first series win in South Africa. The enduring image of that 1996 tour is of All Blacks skipper Sean Fitzpatrick pounding the turf in Pretoria in joy. Fitzpatrick and his 1996 cohorts met the current All Blacks last week with the messages that this tour will be their greatest adventure, and a successful one if they stick together.

In tour history, the teams are in lockstep: Both have undertaken six tours, have four home wins, and one win on the other's soil.

But the All Blacks will go into the upcoming tests as underdogs, firm No. 2s to South Africa's undisputed No. 1 status.

Boks coach Rassie Erasmus has had an eight-year runway to prepare for the series, building enviable depth while winning the last two Rugby Championships and their last 11 tests , their best streak in 18 years. The series will tell Erasmus who has gas in the tank to win a third straight World Cup next year in Australia. He's guiding the Boks in Argentina this week for a last tune-up for the All Blacks.

On the other hand, New Zealand coach Dave Rennie has been in charge since only June and for three matches. He's lifted morale at home by having the All Blacks play direct and at tempo . Rennie has rested Savea until the tests and gearing for the tour games against the Stormers, Sharks, Bulls and Lions. Those provincial sides have not played in at least two months and are shorn of their main Springboks but, as usual, their role will be to soften up and expose the tourists.

Typical of South African hospitality was the greeting by Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis when the All Blacks landed last Friday.

“Off the field we will be the perfect hosts and treat you like royalty,” he said, “but on the field you can expect no mercy.”

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