Rugby World Cup 2015: Penalty count 'worrying' says Steve Hansen

Jerome Garces gives South Africa another penalty at the breakdown. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The All Blacks are in the World Cup final but have resolved to quickly look at why they came second to South Africa in terms of penalties conceded in their nailbiting semifinal victory at Twickenham.

Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer revealed afterwards that it was his intention to put pressure on the All Blacks in order for them to not only make mistakes, but also concede penalties, and Steve Hansen's men finished way behind on that scorecard, conceding 13 to the Boks' six.

In the first half they conceded nine penalties to the Boks' three, including the sinbinning of flanker Jerome Kaino after he kicked the ball away when in an offside position.

"It is worrying," Hansen said. "Without seeing the video ... when you're watching the game you're quite emotional so you probably think the ref hasn't got anything right. But when we get back we'll sit down and look at them. It is a big discrepancy in the count. They scored their points from kicks at goal and if we can sort that out then it makes it harder on the opposition. It's something we'll have to have a look at."

Many of the penalties were conceded at the breakdown, entering mauls from the side, or defending from an offside position. Some of the maul penalties given by referee Jerome Garces left many of the All Blacks, especially No8 Kieran Read, perplexed.

Whatever the reasons for the penalties, the All Blacks resolved to improve their discipline at halftime. At 12-7 down and with Kaino in the bin, they had to fix that in order to get a foothold on the game.

Hooker Dane Coles said the team felt they were on the right track at halftime. "If our discipline was a bit better they wouldn't have been up by that much," he said of Handre Pollard's four penalty goals. "We talked about that at halftime - just to improve our discipline and bring our energy right from the start. I think we did that, especially with a man down. That was a good sign. We just kept chipping away."

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Boks coach Meyer said he had studied Garces and felt the Frenchman would reward them if they played in the right way.

"I believe Fourie [du Preez] and Schalk [Burger] and the whole team had the game plan spot on," he said. "We really wanted to put them under pressure. We studied the ref and knew if we kept the ball in the right areas we could get penalties. Polly was excellent slotting those. We wanted to build scoreboard pressure - they're a team that throw the ball around and we can score from turnovers.

"It was our game plan to build pressure, run at them and build phases in order to get penalties. It worked the first half, in the second half there were a lot of penalties both ways."

Meyer, who said he was keen to "serve" South African rugby in any way he could when asked about his future, said he wasn't surprised by the stream of penalties coming his team's way, and Coles said he wasn't surprised at the tight finish to the match.

"We prepared for that during the week," Coles said. We talked about it going to the wire. I was pretty anxious on the bench [after being replaced by Keven Mealamu in the 67th minute] - I'm not really a good watcher to be honest. But just relief and the knowledge we've given ourselves a chance to play in the final [was the reaction at the end].

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Coles said a lineout turnover when the Boks were on attack near the end proved to be a defining moment.

"Their drive was going well for them and they got a few penalties. It shifted and it took the pressure off us and we ended up going down their end and staying there for the next eight minutes."

Vice captain Schalk Burger said of his disappointment: "I've seen this movie before and it's bloody horrible. It was so, so close. It's difficult to chat now because we gave such a big effort."

Meyer added: "We should have won this game, we had it in our hands, especially in the first half."