Brodie Retallick gets medical assistances during the Bledisloe Cup test in Dunedin. Photo / www.photosport.nz
Brodie Retallick gets medical assistances during the Bledisloe Cup test in Dunedin. Photo / www.photosport.nz
Digging themselves out of holes hasn’t always been a feature of Ian Foster’s All Blacks. On Saturday afternoon in Dunedin, in their final home test of the year, the All Blacks added that Houdini act to their growing bag of tricks. Just in time for the World Cup, too.
TheAll Blacks, despite delivering a decidedly patchy performance, achieved multiple objectives in their 23-20 rematch win over the Wallabies.
After making 12 changes to the starting team, Foster and fellow selectors Joe Schmidt and Jason Ryan can now fully assess everyone’s claims before naming their 33-man World Cup squad tomorrow.
In their four victories this season the All Blacks have blooded six rookies, with blindside Samipeni Finau, outside back Shaun Stevenson and midfielder Dallas McLeod the latest to debut. Of that trio, Finau was most impressive to press his case for World Cup inclusion with a powerful second half performance.
By overcoming a horror first half that featured passive defence, reckless attack, discipline issues, wayward kicking and a wobbly set piece, the All Blacks proved their ability to remain calm under pressure and come back from a large deficit for the first time this year.
Trailing 17-3 at halftime, the All Blacks squeezed the Wallabies through their revived set piece while injecting Richie Mo’unga and Aaron Smith off the bench vastly improved their decision-making and direction.
For those reasons, after his heart rate settled following Mo’unga’s clutch 80th-minute match-winning penalty, Foster projected satisfaction at another notch on the All Blacks’ development curve.
“I’m stoked with the win. Clearly, we were second best by some distance in that first half,” Foster said. “To come back and show a lot of composure under that scoreboard pressure and to win in the last few minutes is a great lesson for this team.
“We’ve had three good wins this year. To come off a different type of win will hold us in good stead for later on.
“We had a strategy going into this game - we made a lot of changes, more than we have for a long time. The overall objective was to win this test but also get this squad to the starting line of the World Cup all in a good space. If we didn’t do that the danger was we’d have a number of players in a World Cup squad who wouldn’t have played a serious test match for eight to nine weeks.
“We knew what we were doing. I was a bit nervous at halftime but, wow, the upside of it is we came through it. Some of the new guys played better in the second half and that’s a good sign too.”
Samipeni Finau impressed on debut. Photo / photosport.nz
The All Blacks will, however, sweat on concerning knee injuries to veteran lock Brodie Retallick and centre Braydon Ennor that now threaten their World Cup involvement.
“I don’t like to worry about things until I know so let’s just get the scans and see what it says,” Foster said.
With one test against the Springboks at Twickenham before confronting France in their World Cup opener in Paris, All Blacks captain Sam Cane welcomed the adversity the Wallabies imposed.
“You can talk but sometimes you have to go through things as a team and overcome them to have that deep, genuine belief you can do it,” Cane said. “Hopefully we don’t find ourselves in that position again but, should we, there’s a little bit of calmness that we’ve been here before.
“The first half was a step backwards but if you look at the second half the growth we’ll get from a mental perspective, to grind out a game like that, it’s going to be huge. Although we don’t want to win on the bell I’m really happy with what we get out of it.”
A chat with former All Blacks selector Grant Fox helped solidify Foster’s assessment of his side’s growth since the depth of their struggles last year.
“He said there weren’t many times in his time us we had three great tests in a row. We started this year that way. This week wasn’t a step forward from the scoreboard but it was from digging ourselves out of a hole. That’s another thing we’re going to need ready. We’re not there yet but, overall, we’re very satisfied where we’re at going into this next block.
“When you come out the other side you actually learn a lot about yourself and your trust in what you’re doing. The stuff about the start, we can all pick holes in that. We know we’ve got to work on that. I love the confidence you get out of winning a test that looked like it might go the other way.”
Now for the vexed task of selecting a World Cup squad.
With the home test season complete, the All Blacks depart Dunedin today to begin the anxious wait for individual calls to determine their place.
