All Blacks look to up ante as bigger tests loom

The All Blacks will expect to demolish Canada in Wellington on Sunday afternoon. Photo / Getty Images

Two of the All Blacks' most feared words - "knockout game'' - were uttered by assistant coach Steve Hansen today but the players and management will be happy with their progress as they move towards the business end of the World Cup.

The All Blacks will expect to demolish Canada in Wellington on Sunday afternoon and will quickly set their sights on their quarter-final opponents, likely to be Argentina, a week later at Eden Park.

Things get a little serious then - there are no second chances as the All Blacks found following their exit against France at the quarter-final stage of the last World Cup.

Hansen said of the Canada match: "The big thing that we're trying to achieve is go up another step, build another block towards what will be the knockout game on the following Sunday against Argentina, I guess it will be at this point.

"We want to go up another notch, our last performance was pretty good but there's still things in it that we'd like to do better and play the game at more pace and with more accuracy and more intensity and apply more pressure to the opposition.''

Hansen said the All Blacks hadn't started planning for Argentina as that would be disrespectful to Canada, but the truth is the North Americans won't feature much in this week's analysis by the players and coaches.

The main focus will be on refining their own game and if they do that successfully not many teams will be able to live with the All Blacks on the field at this tournament.

The players' speed of feet and minds left the French in their wake following two easy victories over Tonga and Japan, and Argentina won't offer much in the way of attacking threats.

Although Tonga surprisingly tested the All Blacks scrum in the second half of their match, and the French built up a good head of steam in the first 10 minutes of their clash, Richie McCaw's men haven't been consistently challenged at this World Cup.

However, they will have one or two things up their sleeves they haven't revealed yet and they will be confident they are in a good position to push on.

There are some injury concerns among the All Blacks, most notably Richard Kahui's hamstring which is likely to keep him out of Sunday's match, but the casualty ward looks nothing like Australia's who today No 8 Radike Samo on the wing in their final pool game against Russia on Saturday.