Springboks and All Blacks to share a cosy flight to the US for Greatest Rivalry Test

The Springboks and the All Blacks are in for a potentially awkward 25 hours together when they share a charter flight from Johannesburg to Baltimore in the USA for the fourth Test of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Tour.

Many a rugby fan would love to be a fly on the wall of the aircraft taking the two teams to the USA for the final match of what should be a bitterly fought series between the No1 and No2 ranked teams in the world.

The rivals play four Tests in as many weeks, starting at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on August 22 and finishing on September 12 at the home stadium of the Baltimore Ravens, an American Football team.

The second Test is in Cape Town and the third also in Johannesburg, at the National Stadium in Soweto. The dew will barely have settled on that match when the teams will be packed into an aircraft together and shuttled off to the USA.

“It will be an unusual situation, playing the All Blacks four times in four weeks, and especially sharing a flight to the States,” Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus said, at a media briefing in Cape Town on Monday.

“For the last Test, they will charter us a flight together on the Saturday night. We have done it a few times with the Pumas when we have played them in South Africa, and the next week had a return game in Argentina.

“It is quite strange us sitting on one side and them sitting on the other, with the tall guys in business class and the others at the back.

“It is an interesting one,” Erasmus smiled. “We don’t have all the answers right now, but we will all be in the same boat.”

Same boat, same aircraft ... Oh, to be that fly on the wall.