By Liam Napier in Cordoba
Six tries, a bonus-point victory to ignite their Rugby Championship campaign, world No 1 again and, yet, mixed emotions, tinged with lingering frustration, are widely evident from the All Blacks after their patchy victory in Argentina.
Improving discipline is the top-line objective for the All Blacks as they seek to amend their second-half fade that tarnished a dominant first-half performance against the Pumas in Cordoba.
While the All Blacks banked a bonus-point victory to enhance their quest to reclaim the Rugby Championship title and returned to world No 1 after the Wallabies stunned the Springboks at Ellis Park, there was no hiding frustrations at their self-inflicted second-half issues that allowed the Pumas to surge back into the contest.
All Blacks playmaker Beauden Barrett delivered a blunt assessment of the 41-24 victory, taking aim at the 11 penalties – the vast majority in the second half – and two yellow cards that rapidly altered the complexion of the match.
A 21-point halftime lead was whittled down to seven before two late Samisoni Taukei’aho tries from mauls pushed Scott Robertson’s men clear.
“Our self-control wasn’t where it needed to be. It wasn’t up to standard,” Barrett said. “That allowed them back into the game. That’s where we’ve got to be better.
“We allowed them to breathe. We gave them a bit of hope. That’s what happens when you get compounding penalties. We put ourselves under pressure. A lot of it is on us. A lot of it is our decisions at the breakdown, offside, penalties, so we’ve got to be better.
“If you let a quality team like the Pumas at home get a roll on, it’s difficult to stop. The passion, the support, the home crowd, [it] really fuels them. Any way possible to stop their momentum was a clear focus for us.
“Our forwards really fronted up when we needed them to around the maul dominance. We leant on that, particularly when we only had 14 men on the park.”
Despite scoring six tries, three in each half, the All Blacks backline produced several clunky moments to squander threatening attacking movements through wasteful skill execution.
After a patchy series sweep of the understrength French in July, the All Blacks clearly have vast improvements in them yet.
“We left points out there in the first half as well. It wasn’t a perfect performance,” Barrett said. “There’s a lot to work on, particularly around a complete 80-minute performance.”
With his side in a commanding halftime position, coach Scott Robertson introduced his bench early in the second spell – only for repeat discipline issues to heap pressure on the need to regain composure and source a response.
As the Pumas revived the silenced but now buoyant 55,725 crowd with their second-half comeback, Robertson rode a familiar rollercoaster of emotions from the coaching box.
“We’ll own it – poor discipline and our own self-control allowed them back in. Twenty one points [advantage]went down to seven pretty quickly, didn’t it,” Robertson told the Herald. “We kept trusting and backing ourselves. A lot of our guys hadn’t played for four or five weeks, so we’ll be better for that.
“It was a bit of everything. We know the areas of the game we’ve got to be better at. We train them, discuss them, we’d like to put them into action but you’ve got to give respect to Argentina too. They tackled well for long periods of time.
“A lot of their players who came on played really well. They brought the crowd, the emotion, back into it. The phones, it felt like Coldplay there for a while with the lights going. If we scored early, we could have gone away but well done to them.”
Other than the five points that strongly position the All Blacks to push on in the Rugby Championship, Robertson will take heart from how his forward pack, many of whom remain inexperienced, fronted up as pressure mounted in a hostile environment to get his men out of dodge.
“We wanted them to go. We’ve got to trust them. We know from last year how important the impact from those players are. Training only gets you to one level; you only get better by playing. It was great that some of them played really well.”
All Blacks captain Scott Barrett, after getting through 55 minutes in his comeback from a calf injury, also singled out the poor discipline as the major focus, with Anton Lienert-Brown’s late yellow card for a head-clash tackle likely to cost him a suspension.
“We started really well. We had a great first half. We took a few punches, rode momentum they got off our ill-discipline, which fed their game,” the skipper said. “We rolled out of that with a couple of maul tries which was pleasing to counter the Pumas onslaught.”
Robertson brushed off the team’s return to No 1, preferring to zero in on the shifts the All Blacks must make as they prepare to welcome back influential forwards Wallace Sititi and Tamaiti Williams for the rematch in Buenos Aires next week.
“It just shows how tough and close test footy is. We’re pleased we’re number one but our sights will be more set on next week’s match than rankings,” Robertson said. “There’s so many things we did well and so many things we need to improve on.
“We’ve got to lock in this week. It’s going to be a different story, different narrative. We’re one up now. They’ll be hurt, they’ll be chasing. We’ve got to improve so we’ll get excited.”
Liam Napier is a Senior Sports Journalist and Rugby Correspondent for the New Zealand Herald. He is a co-host of the Rugby Direct podcast.