We are two games into the eagerly awaited Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour and already the narrative is unfolding exactly as I thought it would when it was first learned that the All Blacks would face the local United Rugby Championship clubs out of season in the tour games.A lot of credit should go to the Stormers for the fight they put up in the opening game in Cape Town. While it is true that the All Blacks didn’t field their strongest team, it took some doing from the Stormers to still be level with the international touring team with 12 minutes to go when they were effectively three weeks into their pre-season.And that in a game where they were missing nine players who were away on international duty, plus some other important players such as their best lock JD Schickerling due to injury. Because the recruitment at the Stormers over the past few years has been a lot cleverer than that at the Sharks, the 47,000 crowd got their money’s worth even though so many star players were missing.By contrast, the apathy building around the Sharks was reflected by the turnout at Kings Park. Admittedly, the wet and cold weather didn’t help, but a crowd of just over 14,000 turning up for an All Blacks game was ridiculous. Yet it is also completely understandable given people have put the dots together and figured out the game was being played both out of season for the rank-and-file Sharks players and also without their Boks.The relatively healthy state of Cape rugby was reflected in the fact that a recent Currie Cup game featuring the Stormers XXIII against the Sharks XV, two development teams, drew over 14,000 people — in other words, the same as the Sharks/All Black game.I’d want to say that Sharks coach JP Pietersen showed naivety in selecting such a young team to play against what was effectively two-thirds of the All Black shadow test team. It’s all very well backing the youngsters, but they needed a core of experienced players around them if they were to have any hope of being competitive against the All Blacks.The problem with saying that is that I am not sure Pietersen had any choice when it came to selection. The recruitment department has long been the biggest stumbling block for the Sharks, and while the winds of change are blowing in that respect, it’s going to take time to get it right.The upshot was a one-sided game in which the All Blacks hardly raised a sweat and always looked like they were in low-key mode as they ran in eight tries without reply and won 54-0. It looked like an opposed practice rather than a game, and I’d argue that neither group got much out of it. The game was not played at sufficient intensity for it to be a good warm-up for the All Blacks for the first Test against the Boks in Johannesburg on August 22.While there was talk of the Sharks’ youngsters getting some useful experience out of the game, that is debatable given they were so comprehensively outplayed, which would not have done anything positive for their confidence.Stormers coach John Dobson was right when, before his team’s game against the All Blacks, he spoke about the responsibility they had to push the All Blacks if these games are to remain part of future tours.The Stormers did their bit, but the Sharks fell well short, and now it is up to the abrasive and physical Bulls to try and save the tour concept by giving the New Zealanders a proper game at Loftus on Saturday.They, like the Stormers, have better and more experienced depth than the Sharks, but they too are playing out of season and without their Boks. The tour concept can only really stand up if the Boks are released to play for their clubs and the tour is shifted to another time when the players aren’t out of season. Neither of those is likely to happen, so some rethinking is necessary before the All Blacks come here again eight years from now.