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.

I ...