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After downing the Springboks 20-18 for their record 13th World Cup win on the bounce to book a berth in the final, All Blacks coach Steve Hansen was asked who would he prefer to play in the decider next week?
“I don’t care, we’re in it,” said it all.
But there were chinks in the All Blacks’ armour last night, especially lack of discipline.
Even though the Boks never looked like scoring a try, they were kept in the game by being gifted penalties from the men-in-black – landing six out of six, with Handre Pollard’s five, and one from his replacement Pat Lambie.
Ill discipline very nearly cost the Wallabies their quarter-final against Scotland, so it will be interesting to see how that vital part of play surfaces tomorrow morning when the Wallabies take on the Pumas for the right to join the All Blacks in the final.
There’s no doubt about how classy the All Blacks are, they never lost their composure even though they were behind on the scoreboard for 31 minutes from the 21st to the 52nd.
There were two critical moments in what was a tension-filled game as the faces of Hansen and his counterpart Heyneke Meyer were constantly captured on television.
The first was the 63rd when the Boks were awarded yet another kickable penalty but the TMO butted in after believing Victor Matfield had head highed an All Black in the maul, and the penalty was reversed.
The second was in the 73rd when All Black lock Sam Whitelock won a lineout against the feed when the Boks were on the attack.
Those two moments could well have made the difference to the Boks, but that’s what World Cup semis are all about.
The stats suggest the All Blacks should have won a lot easier.
They ran 398 metres compared to the Boks’ 146 with the All Blacks dominating through Nehe Milner-Skudder chalking up 92 metres, Ma’a Nonu and man of the match Ben Smith 51 each, and first try-scorer Jerome Kaino 44.
The Boks led the missed tackle count with 19-3, but that was offset by the All Blacks giving away 13 penalties to just six.
Tomorrow it’s the Wallabies turn, with history on their side.
They have never been beaten in World Cup rugby on UK, or Irish soil – with 17 successive wins.
And in that time the Wallabies have won both their World Cups at Twickenham in 1991 with a 12-6 win over England, and in 1999 at the Millennium Stadium with a 35-12 thumping of France.
Those 17 successes have realised 525 points for and just 197 against, that averages 30.9 points a game for, to 11.6 points against.
The Wallaby try-scoring is even more impressive with 63 to only nine from 17 wins, averaging 3.7 a game to 0.5.
Fingers crossed the two fitness question marks hovering over David Pocock and Israel Folau are unfounded, and they can lead the Wallabies to victory over the Pumas to stretch their unbeaten World Cup record on UK and Irish soil to 18.