All Blacks Captain Richie McCaw after winning against the Wallabies during the Bledisloe Cup test match, at Eden Park. Photo / Greg Bowker.
All Blacks Captain Richie McCaw after winning against the Wallabies during the Bledisloe Cup test match, at Eden Park. Photo / Greg Bowker.
Remember Sydney!
That could be the catch-cry of the All Blacks as they prepare for the World Cup in England and Wales next month.
While some have used the emphatic Bledisloe Cup victory over the Wallabies to banish memories of a rough night out the week before, the All Blackswon't be doing the same.
If anything, the 19-27 loss in Sydney will be the match that lingers longer in the memory banks: used as a timely reminder that when it comes to World Cup knockouts, you're only as a good as your worst performance.
"Unfortunately, to really remind you of what it takes to win each game, an experience like [Sydney] certainly sorts that out," All Black captain Richie McCaw told the Herald.
"If we have an off day at the World Cup, we'll be on the plane."
In that respect, he is echoing the thoughts of coach Steve Hansen, who also stopped some way short of crowing after the retention of the Bledisloe Cup.
"If you're good enough to win your pool or come second [at the World Cup], you get one more and that's it. That was the lesson in 2007," he said, casting back to the Cardiff debacle against France, which followed four ludicrously easy pool matches.
The Eden Park victory was widely expected. The All Blacks haven't lost on the ground since 1994, haven't lost to Australia there since 1986 and were farewelling, from New Zealand shores at least, some of the modern greats of the game in McCaw, Ma'a Nonu, Conrad Smith, Keven Mealamu, Tony Woodcock and Dan Carter.
It was the performance of first five-eighth Carter that would have given greatest comfort.
The playmaker had looked a shadow of awesome best in recent times and in Sydney looked reluctant to play at the line and showed uncommon fallibility off the tee.
On Eden park he took on the line, made a one searing break that led to a try and kicked soundly. It wasn't even so much how well he played, but how he played.
"The big thing is, and I think we showed this, you don't become a bad team because of one bad performance," McCaw said. "We kept the belief, but there was some honest conversations after that Sydney test about what we didn't quite get right.
"We're in good shape but we can't get ahead of ourselves."
The All Blacks have a comparatively weak pool at the World Cup - Argentina, Tonga, Georgia and Namibia - so will use the Sydney test as a reminder of what can go wrong when they inevitably get to the knockout rounds.
"In Sydney, while we didn't think about it, maybe in the subconscious we knew we always had next week," McCaw admitted. "At the World Cup you don't have that and in Auckland we didn't have it because the Bledisloe was on the line.
"We have to make sure we prepare like we did for that game."
