Laurie Mains says the All Blacks are not far behind back-to-back World Cup and Rugby Championship winners the Springboks.

The Boks retained the southern-hemisphere crown for the first time last weekend after finishing above New Zealand on points difference.

The former All Blacks coach believes the Boks’ dominance in their record 43-10 victory in Wellington was more about selection and mental lapses than any physical gap between the teams.

“They are [a strong side], but like at half time in that second Test, there was nothing in it,” Mains told The Platform NZ podcast. “It was a pretty equal game, and that was with what I think was not a very well thought-out, selected All Black team.”

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Mains criticised the decision to bench lock Fabian Holland and move Tupou Vaa’i from blindside flank to lock.

“The biggest player in the All Blacks is Fabian Holland. Now, he was put on the bench,” he said. “Tupou Vaa’i, who had been an outstanding success against France and Argentina as a blindside flanker, was for some unknown reason put into lock, marking men that are much bigger and stronger than he is.”

He believes those calls contributed to the team’s struggles after the break.

“We couldn’t win our own lineouts because Fabian Holland wasn’t there,” Mains explained. “We even got pushed back in our scrums, and that was a mental lapse, not a physical lapse. They’re not a stronger scrum than the All Blacks, so it’s a mental lapse, and we couldn’t take high kicks.”

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Mains also highlighted the pressure on fullback Damian McKenzie under the high ball.

“It’s really tough for Damian McKenzie, who’s a pretty small man, trying to take those high kicks against wings that are probably three or four inches taller than him,” he said.

“Scrums, lineouts and the inability to gather their high kicks … if you can’t do those three things, it’s going to fall apart.”

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Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images