All Blacks replacement Malakai Fekitoa runs in a late try against Georgia. Photo / Brett Phibbs
All Blacks replacement Malakai Fekitoa runs in a late try against Georgia. Photo / Brett Phibbs
It wasn't a great All Blacks performance against Georgia but nor was it truly awful and, while the rest of the world will dig into the All Blacks, challenge their status as favourites and hark about their vulnerability, it's best not to worry too much about all that.
Every teamat this tournament re vulnerable, but not every team will keep winning.
Three games in and the All Blacks have three victories, no major injuries and have qualified for the quarter-finals already. Things could hardly be going more to plan.
A flashy, immaculate, ruthless destruction of Georgia would have no doubt led to entirely different claims being made that the All Blacks were back, that they were without flaw and almost untouchable. That would have been equally misleading and wrong.
Nothing has changed regarding the big picture because the All Blacks weren't great for much of the match against Georgia. This is a tournament with distinct parts - a qualification process and then a knockout. It would be great for the All Blacks to blast through the pool, destroying everything in their path.
But they have been there and done that and, when they did, they were home a week later because they didn't nail the knockout part. Qualification is for exactly that and it's a pointless exercise extrapolating big-picture statements about what a mostly underwhelming performance does and doesn't say about their overall chances.
At the heart of all their problems was poor skill execution and that's why there is no sense of panic looming.
If the All Blacks had looked old and slow against Georgia, that would be a problem. If they had failed to create anything - problem. But what they did was drop the ball too many times and throw a few too many loose passes. Not a problem.
They haven't suddenly lost the ability, to a man, to play pass-and-catch rugby. They had a bad night as they have had bad nights before.
And just as they have had bad nights before so, too, have they recovered and been devastating seven days later. When the passes stick, this All Blacks team will look different.
When they get to the quarter-final, this All Blacks team will look different. They will, when they improve their execution, play at the pace they want and, when they do that, teams can't contain them.
When they turn the contest into an aerobic challenge, they tend to win those by a distance. When they get into the quarter-final, they will find their patience and composure because they will know they can't survive without it.
Playing a weakened Tier 2 side, the All Blacks wanted to run from everywhere and play in a style that would be suicidal if they tried it in the last eight. That mindset of playing fast and loose was overdone against Georgia. It won't be when the competition gets serious.
Of the other problems, their scrummaging didn't look good in Cardiff but two of the best scrummaging sides have been Fiji and Georgia, just a fraction behind Argentina. Were the All Blacks so bad or we they up against one of the best scrummaging sides who were allowed to get away with a bit?
Yes, it was a test that didn't encourage optimism, didn't excite or have any wow factor from an All Blacks perspective. That's it, though. The All Blacks are still a rampant force, still the favourites and still on track to win this thing.
Image 1 of 12: All Blacks captain Richie McCaw before the Pool C match between New Zealand and Georgia. Photo / Brett Phibbs
