All Blacks: Mental repairs after 'reality check'

Dan Carter says the All Blacks are frustrated but have huge belief. Photo / Getty Images

Marketing meltdowns have been in vogue lately in New Zealand, and the All Blacks may carry a tinge of that today.

The World Cup squad will be officially presented at the Ponsonby Rugby Club where the mood will not be as upbeat as the players, selectors and public had hoped.

The squad returned late last night from Brisbane and their 25-20 loss to the Wallabies. They spent the day assessing injuries, recovering and analysing their performance. That delay meant they avoided the daylong fallout and handwringing that dominated the airwaves throughout New Zealand.

Looseforwards Kieran Read (ankle) and Adam Thomson (elbow) need x-rays and injury assessment, while mental repairs will be needed on a clutch of others.

"I think they just had more edge than us and we suffered because of that," coach Graham Henry said. "We did not do the business in the finish."

With that concise summary, Henry left a host of unexplained subsidiary questions about why the best side, bolstered by rested senior men who only had to fly across the Ditch, struggled in such a critical encounter.

In six previous campaigns, the All Blacks have never had consecutive defeats going into a World Cup.

They have had only one other loss in the match immediately before a tournament - in 1999, Taine Randell's side fell 28-7 to the Wallabies in Sydney.

Otherwise, they always had a winning momentum though not necessarily global supremacy - 1987 aside.

It is awkward keeping context about performances as sides jostle their players and form before World Cups. But this was a test the All Blacks wanted desperately to win, even if that did not shine through their messy first-half performance.

They wanted to revitalise the squad after the alternate side sank in Port Elizabeth against the Springboks.

They wanted to keep their foot on the Wallabies' throats; they wanted to send another authoritative message to the rugby world.

Instead, the senior selection, the combination Henry said was close to the A team, went the way of the others.

"If we needed a wake-up, we got it," captain Richie McCaw stated bluntly.

"We got back into the game, then lost it."

In the first spell, the All Blacks looked listless as the Wallabies began with an intensity and a rush defence which cut to the core of the visitors.

Halftime instructions produced a more direct approach, which claimed two converted tries and a 20-all deadlock with a quarter of the match to run.

The tempo was with the All Blacks before Will Genia reversed that flow with his match-clinching incision.

"It is frustrating," Daniel Carter said. "But we have huge belief. This is a reality check, though."

It was. The first half was the worst All Black response this season and will promote claims that, no matter what the coaches' attempts to get them to think for themselves, they struggle in that area.

Centre Conrad Smith predicted the public response: "I'm sure there will be a bit of panic. But if we are any good we will come out of this and it will be a lesson for us to learn from."

There would be a stack of quality sides at the World Cup, said Smith, and the All Blacks needed to be on their game from the start, to turn things around and build.

Their problem now is that France looms as their only serious rival before the quarter-finals, when the side will again be able to measure itself against heavy-duty opponents.

Even those who observe the Tricolores regularly shake their heads at any chances of a pool-play upset to match the 1999 and 2007 boilovers.

"Pas possible" is the general response - France are not up to it this time. But that was the view when they toured two years ago, won at Carisbrook and should have repeated at the Cake Tin.