Rugby World Cup: All Blacks' miserly defence 'superb'

New Zealand All Blacks forwards Kieran Read, Sam Whitelock, Luke Romano and Brodie Retallick, during the All Blacks team training session. Photo / Brett Phibbs.

There are a few good reasons why the All Blacks are happier about their work so far than many feel they have any right to be.

Number one is their defence. It's been good. It has been outstanding, in fact, and if there is one area of their game they know will be tested to the extreme in the knockout rounds, it is their defence.

They only missed four tackles against Georgia - a quite staggeringly low number and their average of nine missed per game is easily the best in the competition. The other possible quarterfinalists have been considerably more porous: Argentina missing 32 per game, Australia nearly 19, France 15, Ireland 10, Scotland 14, Wales 17 and South Africa 13.

Not only are they making their tackles, they are effective, too. It was noticeable against Georgia that the All Blacks were taking ball carriers low as as often as they could - chopping the ball carrier down fast with a view, presumably, to allowing an open and clear contest for the ball on the floor.

Defence has been Wayne Smith's area of focus since he rejoined the coaching team at the start of the year. He's been tinkering and evolving the structure of the screen since he arrived and building in copious detail that has taken the players time to get used to. But the evidence is mounting that his input has had a positive impact and the teething problems have been worth it.

A miserly defence is a pre-requisite for World Cup success and the All Blacks, so far, have been easily the best defensive side in the competition. It's been hard to pick, but the stats don't lie and a water tight, aggressive defence is going to be invaluable in the last eight.

"We are working hard behind the scenes at the moment and we have had three aims," says head coach Steve Hansen. "One was to qualify; two was to be the number one qualifier and three is to build parts of our game that we are going to need if we are going to survive in this competition. That has been to the detriment of some of the other stuff that normally comes with that because you haven't got enough time.

"The work we are doing behind the scenes is starting to pay off. Our defence [against Georgia] was superb. We missed four tackles in the whole game."

The scrum, maybe surprisingly, can be added to the list of positives. The All Blacks lead the tournament statistics for scrums won and while they had a few issues dealing with Georgia, they measure their success on what they were able to do with the ball they won on their own put in.

The platform, when it needed to be, was rock steady and provided perfect ball for the backs to launch.

"We are pretty satisfied with what we have got particularly off our own ball," says assistant coach Ian Foster. "We got a couple of set-piece tries that were really good and we had a couple of little victories off their ball. We are going to learn and adapt."