KEY POINTS:
Scotland saw the last of Tana Umaga, who earned most of his international keep at centre, and yesterday felt the heat from Richard Kahui who is fast asking to be a long-term successor to the former All Black skipper.
The 23-year-old is too polite to suggest he is
pushing into seniority at centre but he is offering a genuine alternative to Conrad Smith in what shapes as one of the tougher selection battles for the national panel on this tour.
Smith, consistently, has a low error rate when he plays. He is tidy, effective and part of a strong organising committee in the backline. His strength is his intellectual grasp on a game, his instincts are strong and he offers a neat counterpoint to some of the more flamboyant players around him.
In time, perhaps on this trip, Kahui's extra power, attacking array, size and vision may nudge him past Smith as the prime centre. It will be a tough choice, perhaps one of the most difficult the panel will face on this trip.
A lovely grubber for a try to Piri Weepu, his own effort when he backed up a kick the Scots let bounce and a wonderful covering diving save to snuff out an attacking Scots kick not long after, were all rugby cameos which oozed Kahui's class.
"It is always good to get a dot [try] but it was the combination of the whole team doing their job," Kahui said of his touchdown.
"I just chased through and got the pass from Liam [Messam] and that is how it worked."
The try was crucial in that it extended the All Blacks' lead to 23-6 soon after halftime in one of the rare times the All Blacks were on attack. Kahui admitted the tourists had been hanging on at halftime when they were a man down with Anthony Boric in the bin and had survived a series of onslaughts from the Scots.
"It was pretty tough in that first half. I think we only had one really good scrum set piece to work from so it was difficult to set rucks close to the forwards but the selectors said just to go out there and do more. We didn't really want to change much, except get a bit more go forward and play what was in front of us.
"We were told to play what we saw, not to go into our shells and we did that but we still did not finish some stuff we wanted to."
Scotland made a number of breaks but were unable to finish them while the All Blacks, despite their lack of possession, had a far better completion rate from their opportunities.
Kahui acknowledged that the team's defence on first phase was not as sharp as it should have been but they had scrambled extremely well to recover.
It was always a great feeling to wear the black jersey, it provoked every player to give even more to the game and the team.
"You want to work harder than anybody else to fulfil what it takes to wear that jersey, so that is great and it certainly helps drive you," he said.
