Julian Savea takes on the Georgia defence during the All Blacks' win. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Julian Savea takes on the Georgia defence during the All Blacks' win. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Pressure, as Steve Hansen says, does funny things to people, so maybe these All Blacks need to take a bit off themselves.
This morning's match against Georgia was supposed to be their breakthrough performance of the World Cup, at least that was how skipper Richie McCaw wanted it. On theeve of the test, he sat alongside assistant coach Ian Foster and said: "Performance-wise, we need to take a step up and this is the time to do that."
They did it in the first quarter but the concerning thing for the outsider looking in is the fact they appeared to get frustrated very quickly when things didn't go their way thereafter.
The same happened in the Namibia match when Foster said his men were "bored". It's difficult not to have an element of sympathy here because neither the 20th-ranked Namibians nor the 15th-ranked Georgians played with a lot of attacking intent. Both scored a try, sure, but most of the time they were happy to absorb the pressure and limit the damage.
But at the Millennium Stadium that frustration manifested itself in worrying ways. There is playing at tempo and there is playing with haste and making poor decisions. At one stage in the second half, the All Blacks won a penalty in their territory and Aaron Smith took a quick tap and, from the resulting ruck, kicked deep to the fullback. Why not simply kick the ball into Georgia's territory and earn the right for a lineout throw?
They built a foundation of sorts, but instead of systematically constructing the walls they set about getting the roof on and chimney up. Details count at this level. It was no wonder they lost a few tiles.
For wing Julian Savea, the scorer of three tries which brought his tally to 35 in 38 tests, and veteran centre Conrad Smith the need to keep things simple is paramount.
"If you're unsure, just carry hard or [use quick] hands. It's as simple as that," Savea said.
"It's not like we drop off. We just weren't patient enough. We wanted to score straight away rather than build phases. When we did, we finished things off pretty well."
Smith said the pace the All Blacks were trying to play at was counter-productive at times.
"One or two errors crept in and it is funny how that adds pressure and suddenly it snowballs.
"If you look at last week's game, it almost ground to a halt and we looked at that and said that if that is going to happen, we have to look at ways [to fix that]. We have got to look at these pool games and try to get something out of them. That's obviously not how we are going to play in the knockout games. It was something we tried."
There remains something of the phoney war still about these pool matches. Namibia and Georgia entered their games against the All Blacks knowing they wouldn't win and played accordingly, although they gave very good accounts of themselves, particularly on defence.
The All Blacks' quarter-final opponents, however - either France or Ireland - will know they won't win without attacking and it's here that teams can stretch themselves and offer opportunities on the counter, which is where the defending champions are at their best.
They will receive criticism for this performance, but the All Blacks are their own harshest judges. Maybe it's time to take some of that pressure off.
Image 1 of 12: All Blacks captain Richie McCaw before the Pool C match between New Zealand and Georgia. Photo / Brett Phibbs
