By Liam Napier at Twickenham
The hurt and frustration of blowing their quest for a treasured Grand Slam will long linger for the All Blacks.
A humbling 33-19 defeat at Twickenham, as England savoured their first home victory against the All Blacks for 13 years, shone a glaring spotlight on familiar flaws from Scott Robertson’s side.
The All Blacks’ inconsistencies within games, particularly their third-quarter fades and their struggling attack, won’t be fixed in their final week of the year in Cardiff.
Only a wide-scale off-season review will determine how to move forward, with significant change required.
Defeat for the All Blacks after late escapes against Ireland and Scotland in the last two weeks was far from a shock.
In many respects, with England riding high on confidence and the All Blacks flattering to deceive after another largely turbulent season, it felt somewhat inevitable.
And after this result, the trajectory of the two teams casts contrasting light.
Having set their sights on the fifth successful sweep of the Home Unions, following in the footsteps of their 1978, 2005, 2008 and 2010 predecessors, the All Blacks will first attempt to digest falling short of an achievement the underwhelming Robertson reign needed for credibility.
“It’s hard to win a Grand Slam. We definitely know how hard it is now,” Robertson said. “We wanted to put our name on the history board like others had done and make them all proud. We didn’t get there so it hurts.”
New Zealand captain Scott Barrett echoed the frustration of his coach.
“It’s a goal we set out to achieve a few weeks ago. England pulled the rug out from under us,” Barrett said.
“We’ll quickly put our focus towards Wales and finishing strong but it’s hugely disappointing to come away with a loss here. We’ll reflect and have to get better. It will be a pebble under the beach towel, as an old coach once said.”
Fullback Will Jordan didn’t hide from the frustrations, either.
“We’ll have an honest review about where we are at,” Jordan said. “This year we’ve played some great rugby but it’s probably a bit of a reflection about where we’re at around not being able to do it for 80 minutes.”
Robertson pointed to a lack of accuracy reflected by Beauden Barrett and Cam Roigard, both of whom suffered injuries in this match, missing touch from penalties, and the team’s endemic third-quarter fades for the loss.
“If it did, that wouldn’t happen,” Robertson said of whether he could explain the ongoing issues after halftime. “We’ve tried a lot at training and to try [to] educate ourselves as much as we possibly can around what it takes to keep that momentum and keep that pressure on teams and it obviously hasn’t happened, so it’s frustrating. You put so much work into it. It’s definitely an area of growth.
“There was so much good stuff we did out there, we just didn’t take advantage of it. Our self-control was really good in the first half. There were some really good opportunities which we didn’t take.”
Robertson and skipper Barrett had no issues with Codie Taylor’s seemingly harsh yellow card – the All Blacks’ first penalty of the match. The card immediately handed England the ascendancy and the lead for the first time straight after the break.
Barrett also praised George Ford’s influential impact that included two drop goals.
“I think it’s fair,” Barrett said. “It’s an impulse thing. From a mental point of view, it’s the underlying frustration that you put your hand in the cookie jar.
“England’s defence is a big part of the DNA. Potentially, we could have turned them around with some variation in our kicking. They did really well at slowing our ball down. They won the contact area around the breakdown so we couldn’t get a roll-on like we hoped.
“The last couple of games we’ve finished well but tonight we didn’t do that.”
England’s second-largest win against the All Blacks drastically alters the complexion of their season and, indeed, Robertson’s tenure, with a seventh loss in 26 tests representing a significant setback.
England, with their 10th straight success and ninth win in 47 attempts against the All Blacks, will revel in their moment and fuel their growing belief.
To illustrate how much the win means to his team, England coach Steve Borthwick revealed captain Maro Itoje’s address to the team on the morning of the match.
“He talked about when the team were 14-, 15-year-old boys dreaming of playing for England, dreaming of playing here and beating teams like New Zealand. He asked the players to go out and play with that intent, the 14-, 15-year-old who has that dream. They did that today and I thought they were outstanding,” Borthwick said.
“This is about trying to achieve special moments, special memories. Today is one of them. Hopefully, there’s a load of other young future rugby players watching that game today who want to wear the white shirt and go out and get great victories for England.”