All Blacks head coach Steve Hansen praised his side’s second-half display in their 38-13 Rugby Championship win over the Wallabies in Sydney on Saturday.
Down 6-5 at half-time, the All Blacks came out after the half-time break and blitzed the Australians to get one hand on the Cup for another year.
Hansen said the All Blacks management were not too concerned at the break.
“We thought the first half was like a prizefight, both teams were testing each other out,” he told SkySport.
“They [Australia] probably had their moments in the first 20 minutes and made us make a lot of tackles. Then it was our turn to have our moments and whilst we didn’t capitalise like we would have liked to have in that 20 minutes we certainly made them work hard.
“We managed one just before halftime and then after halftime we came out and hit the boards running and that was the hard work we had put in over the last 20 minutes of the first half.”
Part of the reason for the All Blacks success was down to the forward dominance, especially at line-outs.
Hansen said they knew the line-out was a big area of Australia’s play and that if they could hurt them there it would have the effect of nullifying some of their back play.
“It was something we wanted to do and the plan worked well so the boys should be congratulated for that,” he said.
Hansen added that lock Brodie Retallick had shown what the All Blacks missed when they didn’t have him.
“He’s an amazing footballer and when you can cast a shadow on a guy like Sam Whitelock, who I think is an amazing footballer as well, to have two of them in one team at the same time is pretty special,” he said.