25 THINGS WE LEARNED BEFORE THE WORLD CUP
01 The All Blacks haven’t lost their ability to respond to pressure. There are few teams in the world that react better to being pushed into a corner and told they have to fight their way out.
They were under genuine pressure ahead of the second Bledisloe Cup test at Eden Park. They began 2019 with an unconvincing victory against Argentina albeit with a largely second-string team.
A draw with the Boks came next and then a record loss to the Wallabies left them in dire need of a big performance in Auckland not just to retain the Bledisloe, but to reassure everyone they weren’t in terminal decline.
The knives were out after the loss in Perth. Some critics said they were too old. Others reckoned Steve Hansen had lost faith in his players and the gameplan he was trying to implement.
There were concerns about almost every part of the All Blacks and they needed something emphatic to alleviate the pressure.
Which they did with a crushing 36-0 victory that was built on the relentless aggression of the pack who were stunningly effective with and without the ball.
They were asked to deliver and they did, leaving Hansen to say: “There have been a lot of things said in the media and a lot of things spoken about within the team, and that creates the pressure to have to step up to the plate.
“Everyone externally was starting to get a bit shaky, start to question whether the coaches still had it, the players still had it. To come out and show with real intent … I thought Reado [Kieran Read] was massive. He answered a lot of questions for a lot of people externally.
“The external group of our nation can now breathe slightly easier and we can all carry on working away to what we’re trying to do.”
02 The All Blacks tight five has the capacity to dominate any team in the world. We didn’t see that consistently during the Rugby Championship, but we did see it.
The All Blacks forwards were superb at Eden Park where they gave an incredible reminder of their power at the breakdown and scrum.
They buckled and broke the Wallabies in the first scrum of the game and then did it again when they were down to seven men as a result of Dane Coles being yellow
