Gregor Paul: The All Blacks' deliberate ploy to play under pressure

Sam Cane and Richie McCaw during the second Pool C match between New Zealand and Namibia. Photo / Brett Phibbs

What you see is not necessarily what you get with the All Blacks at the moment. The full menu hasn't been on show just yet and that is deliberate.

In Steve Hansen's view, laying it all out there in the pool rounds hasn't worked in the past. The All Blacks romped through their pool in 2007 and it didn't do them any good.

They encountered such little resistance along the way that they had fallen out of the habit of dealing with pressure - a fact that became painfully apparent in the quarterfinal.

It wasn't so different in 2011. Japan and Canada were physically lacking across the park and it was cakewalk time. Big scores helped the public feel better, but they didn't do much for the All Blacks' preparation for what lay ahead.

And that is essentially what is underpinning Hansen's philosophy at this tournament: he's determined not to let the pool games be wasted. They have ideas about what parts of their game will be important later in the tournament and they want to test them.

If the opposition can't naturally provide that challenge, then the All Blacks, as they showed, will do what they can themselves to create the problems they need to solve.

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The All Blacks played with a deliberate plan of not kicking the ball. And the point of that was to invite Georgia to rush at them on defence and stack their frontline.

The Georgians only had one man in the backfield. Kicking into the space would have been the right ploy in normal circumstances. These weren't normal circumstances, though.

The plan was to be deliberately put under pressure - to find a way past a rush defence - one where the Georgians licensed a lone tackler to come out of the line and target a potential recipient.

Obviously the All Blacks think they will encounter rush defences later in the tournament so best get used to them now. It made for some ugly moments but the bit to not lose sight of was that the All Blacks will be all the better for having encountered that sort of pressure.

The other bit to remember is that they eventually found a way to deal with it. It took an age, but they got there and better to take an age against Georgia to come up with the answer than in a quarterfinal and not come up with the answer.

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Artificially manipulating the gameplan to create pressure on themselves may not sit well with everyone. Why not just get on with playing how they are going to play and try to perfect it?

Hansen's answer is that they have been there and done that - and it didn't work. In 2007 they were supposedly at full noise after hammering Italy, Scotland, Romania and Portugal except they weren't. They had learned little in those games - they were all show.

So Hansen doesn't want the world to see their whole game now - they can wait for that. They can be left wondering what the All Blacks have truly got.

The danger, which he acknowledges, is that the All Blacks only have one game left before the knockout rounds. How big a risk would it be to self-inflict more pressure against Tonga and then try to build the first cohesive, total performance in the quarterfinal?

Probably too big a risk will be the answer which is why it's probable the All Blacks will give a bit more of their game away against Tonga. They might not unleash all they have got, but they will provide a clearer picture of what they are all about.

That still won't be the time to make definitive judgements about their chances, but it will provide a better reference base than what was on offer against Georgia.