Book-ending their turbulent Rugby Championship with successive victories over the Wallabies suggests the All Blacks are slowly learning but after again conceding the southern hemisphere crown to South Africa, and suffering significant scars along the way, further improvement is required.
Back-to-back wins against the Wallabies at Eden Park and Perth, where the All Blacks banked a bonus point in their 28-14 success, will allow Scott Robertson’s men to exhale during a three-week break before returning for their four-match grand slam tour in November.
On a wet night the All Blacks rode through an early onslaught from the Wallabies to notch a record 11 straight victories over their closest foe.
The performance, led by a man of the match effort from Quinn Tupaea at centre, wasn’t perfect or pretty in difficult conditions.
The All Blacks lacked polish and discipline in the first half. They were helped by two yellow cards to the Wallabies and their loss of influential enforcer Will Skelton after 14 minutes to a head knock. But, when it mattered, the All Blacks were increasingly dominant in the second half.
Not long after Robertson witnessed his team shake their frustrating inconsistency, though, the Springboks secured their first successive Rugby Championship titles on superior points differential – thanks to their blowout victory in Wellington – after their four-point win against the Pumas at Twickenham on Sunday morning (NZT).
While the All Blacks retained the Bledisloe Cup, failing to reclaim the Rugby Championship title, alongside their maiden defeat in Argentina and their heaviest loss in history against the Springboks in Wellington, casts an unflattering light on their tournament.
As he reflected on the team’s Rugby Championship campaign, All Blacks captain Scott Barrett acknowledged the mixed emotions.
“It’s pleasing to finish the Rugby Championship with a win like that. It wasn’t pretty but we hung tough tonight in greasy conditions and adapted,” Barrett said.
“Throughout this Rugby Championship we’ve learnt we need to front up every week when you put the All Blacks jersey on. A couple of times we clearly didn’t do that. Those are tough lessons. This group has a few scars from that.
“We want to have a refresh before we head up north and chase a grand slam. We’ll celebrate a couple of little things tonight like Will Jordan’s 50th and George Bower’s first professional try and look forward to getting home.”
After riding the fluctuations of the demanded highs and confounding lows attached to this unpredictable and highly competitive tournament, Robertson took satisfaction from the All Blacks marking a record run against the Wallabies.
“It means a lot because we’ve had a few things we wanted to keep the tradition and history on. Other teams have set this up so we wanted to keep it going,” Robertson said.
“We knew the importance of this match for them. They wanted to turn that record, especially here in a state where you don’t get too much footy, and with the emotion around James Slipper’s last game. We came prepared for that.
“The mental toughness and grit that we showed to stay in the whole game. In the past games we probably would’ve let teams back in but the bench that came on made a big difference and we managed to finish a really tough game.”
Leroy Carter impressed on the wing with his highly involved work-rate and third try from three starts.
On the other edge, Leicester Fainga’anuku savoured his return to the test scene after two years in France with trademark power carries.
Jordie Barrett sparked the All Blacks with two grubbers in the first half and Peter Lakai, in his maiden start at No 8, seized his chance too.
No one, though, enhanced their claims in Perth more than Tupaea.
With two tries, the first he finished following a rebound off Barrett’s head, the second from Jordan’s quick tap after fending off Wallabies flanker Tom Hooper, a sound defensive display while injecting his direct ball carrying presence, Tupaea defied his lack of familiarity with the centre role to send a statement of intent after replacing Billy Proctor.
“It’s a position I haven’t played a lot. I got a lot of confidence from my midfield partners this week – Billy, Anton [Lienert-Brown] and Rieko [Ioane] – so I’m pretty pleased with that performance,” Tupaea said.
“It was a surprise. Monday clarity I was running on the wing again and my name got called on Tuesday morning at centre with no heads up. I was all over my detail. I thought I trained there very well this week so I had a lot of confidence going into the game. I’m happy to play anywhere for this team – 12, 13, or 22 – I just want to be out there.
“Defensively there’s a lot more space to cover. You saw I had to chase down Max Jorgensen a few times. I’m not used to that but there’s more space on attack which is nice.
“We wanted to be physical, fearless and use our forwards up front with the likes of myself and Leicester who are keen to get downhill on the carry. I think we showed that tonight.”
Having seemingly delivered a definitive step forward in the last two weeks, the next quest for Robertson’s All Blacks is to continue that trajectory to prove they have turned the corner.
Further evidence, at this point, is required.
“It’s something we’ve spoken about. We haven’t backed up well,” Tupaea said. ”We’ve had big performances at Eden Park and then fell off the week after so it’s very satisfying for this group. It’s nice now to have three weeks off and with that performance, it’s a good stepping stone into the northern tour.”