Having secured another Rugby Championship with their 35-17 win over Argentina, All Blacks coach Steve Hansen was pleased with a dominant performance, especially up front.
They claimed the title by picking up a bonus point for their try advantage but once again there were aspects that left improvements to be worked on.
“Parts of it were messy but there were other parts that were really good and at times we played some good footy and other times we didn’t play that great,” Hansen told Sky Sports.
“But you’ve got to give a bit of credit to Argentina. They’re a very difficult side to play against, and particularly here. (We scored) five tries, got the bonus point and got the Rugby Championship so I can’t complain too much.”
Hansen said number eight Ardie Savea, who was a late replacement for an ill Luke Whitelock, had been outstanding. While the All Blacks scrum had performed outstandingly, Savea had shown great control of the ball at the base of the scrum.
“He controlled the ball at the back and won us a lot of penalties because of that control, he showed a lot of pace off the back of the scrum too and his play round the park was good,” he said.
There had been more progress in terms of game management. It was an evolving process and at the end of the game it had been a ‘pretty young group’ of players on the field.
“We’ve got to be really pleased with how they coped with some of the pressure,” added Hansen.
Defensively the side had demonstrated more consistency in the application of their systems in what was a high tackling night.
Another to impress was replacement tighthead prop Angus Ta’avao who had to cope with coming in late to join the side and to learn the systems but he had scrummed well and lifted well in the lineouts.
“I thought he did really well, he should be proud of himself,” said Hansen.
“Four or five weeks ago he wasn’t even thinking about being an All Black now and his dream has come true.”
There was also satisfaction with a 100 percent goal-kicking effort by fly-half Beauden Barrett.
Hansen rated goal-kicking to golf when things didn’t necessarily always go to plan and he said when playing 25 games of rugby there were probably two or three times when things didn’t go that well.
“You can’t beat yourself up too much about it,” he said.
“It was a good learning experience for him to have to deal with that mentally and I think he’s done that.”