Rugby: A win's a win but this one will spark soul-searching

Israel Dagg of the All Blacks congratulates team mate Colin Slade of the All Blacks after kicking the winning conversion in Saturday's match. Photo / Getty Images

Emotional handwringing will go to a new level on the other side of the Ditch and there will be more than a touch of All Blacks introspection after their latest Great Escape.

Bottom line though, the All Blacks won.

For that they must be commended. Their repeated resilience under fire has become such a constant theme during the Hansen years that it has become an accepted part of their work.

Such mental tenacity is gold and it was to the fore once more in Brisbane on Saturday as the All Blacks warded off the incessant Wallabies and their own difficulties to claim their late victory.

It is a trait these All Blacks have gathered from Christchurch to Dublin to Brisbane in the way the Wallabies, with Toutai Kefu and John Eales, brought such despair to these rugby shores.

Test match strategies boil down to detailed simplicity but as every rugby coach will accentuate, rugby is an 80-minute game. Button off any earlier and danger arrives with chilling ferocity.

The Wallabies felt that cold agony while their embattled coach, Ewen McKenzie, was left to ponder the extra pain of his last hurrah before he advised his squad he was heading for the unemployment queue.

For most of the test the Wallabies made the running but the All Blacks crested the tape. They did not make it easy on themselves.

When replacement five-eighths Colin Slade missed touch late from a penalty, the test should have been dusted but the All Black forwards turned the ball over and cool heads engineered Malakai Fekitoa to the line for Slade to make amends with his winning conversion.

There was mixed euphoria from the All Blacks. Victory is always sweeter than defeat but it was a disjointed triumph.

Predictable and uninspired are not the usual descriptions for their attacking work but they had that look as the Wallabies shut them down without any great alarms and then cut holes regularly in their defences.

Many were individual mistakes, yet there were also system glitches which left them seriously under-powered as Adam Ashley-Cooper scored in his 100th test.

Attack was the All Blacks' refrain, but the method was limited to backline moves or working from sideline to sideline. That worked well when Dane Coles dummied and boogied but the variations running off the ruck or churning up the centre were limited.

Perhaps any One Direction soundtracks in their dressing room need to be excised.

The All Blacks could not scald the Wallabies' lungs, nor did the revamped tight five give them enough stick in the physical exchanges. It was game on for the entire contest.

They gave themselves an even bigger task when, already with a 10-point deficit, Patrick Tuipulotu was sinbinned going into the last quarter. Minds sharpened a touch more, the resolve went up a cog and two clinical tries sentenced the Wallabies to another episode of sporting purgatory.

There will be plenty of inquisition from the All Blacks as well after heading to Brisbane early to rid themselves of the struggles they have had at Suncorp in recent years.

This time they headed home with the satisfied sleep of winners and a week off before November's challenges north of the equator.