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Ian Foster’s All Blacks laid down a World Cup marker with a sensational opening blast against the Springboks but the coach was even more pleased with how finished the job.
The Kiwis went to a 17-0 lead in the opening 17 minutes, then withstood a solid response by the Boks after halftime before running out comfortable 35-20 winners in Auckland.
Asked what pleased him most, Foster said: “Just the way we climbed through some ebbs and flows in the game.
“They’re a quality team and we obviously stung them at the start with the tempo we were able to play. I thought our desire to play on top of them early was there and we got good reward for it.
“But they came back. We’ve spoken before about defending leads, and they had a lot of experience on their bench in that third quarter. But I thought we rowed through that, so it’s a good step for us.”
The teams could face off in a World Cup quarterfinal but Foster played down the significance of this result on a future clash.
“Any win over South Africa is pretty special, particularly this South African team, and to deal with the best they had off the bench, and the way we did it, was encouraging,” said Foster.
“I guess the thing that gives us most confidence is they had a lot of momentum in the second half where they were on top, and rather than losing our way for too long we managed to find a way back.
“That was the part that was really pleasing. If we can keep building that confidence in that part of our game then the first-half stuff will be pretty good.”
After back to back wins Foster added: “Two out of two. We said at the start we wanted to focus on the here and now, and this team has learnt if we get distracted by looking too far in the distance we trip ourselves up.
“We have got a lot of growth to do. We are learning let’s just nail each week at a time, not think too much about anything else, and just focus on being as good as we can be right now. That’s been a good formula for us, and has meant we haven’t tried to over-analyse the past or get too excited about the future.”
He played down the RWC factor.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The World Cup is a series of one-off games …. in some ways I don’t think it’s relevant, simply because of the nature of World Cups. Where it is relevant is the confidence you get out of building the blocks in your own game. We’ll take that.
“But you only have to go back to Super Rugby to realise the team that won it lost to the other team twice in the year. But we are delighted about tonight’s game.”
Foster was full of praise for the All Blacks outstanding players, Will Jordan and flanker Shannon Frizell./
“[Shannon] has taken the challenge on board. It’s a jersey he wants. I was delighted. I thought last week was one of his best tests, and Argentina are a tough team, and he was strong. To do it again this week is pretty special. He should be proud,” Foster said.
“Will Jordan after his break came back and we saw the quality of him. The ball went his way a bit early which was pleasing, and the fact we could get him heavily involved from the wing was also very pleasing.”
Captain Sam Cane, who went off at halftime with a neck injury that was deemed not serious, said the team was “in a pretty good spot. We came in with short preparation but it was great for us as a squad to go to Argentina … it enabled us to come together quite quickly, and to be able to put out two performances we’re pretty proud of. But we’re going to keep searching for ways to improve, so come the right time of the year we’re at our best.”
Springboks coach Jacques Nienaber was down cast at his team’s performance.
“The start wasn’t ideal for us,” said Nienaber.
“I felt we struggled to get into the game because of poor discipline – four consecutive penalties – and a lot of mistakes compounded by four or five missed tackles and against a quality side like New Zealand they will capitalise on that.
“They did that, and we played catch-up for the rest of the time. We can’t start like that with penalties and errors, probably some of them unforced and some from the pressure exerted on us, and if you’re going to play catch-up it’s going to be tough to get a foothold.
Shannon Frizell of the All Blacks . (Photo by Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)
“I don’t think it’s a thing that we regularly start badly – no one goes out to have a poor start and say, ‘let’s save ourselves for the second half’. Sometimes it happens; sometimes you make a mistake or two and are on the back foot. We knew what was coming we just didn’t handle it.
“Having said that, I’m proud of the way we came back; we scored 17 points in the second half but unfortunately the damage was done in the first half.”
Nienaber said that the two opening matches had served a purpose although they had not gone entirely to plan.
“The majority of the guys have had an opportunity to play,” he said.
“Our plan was to win the Rugby Championship and to assess the players and we’ve got some good answers from these two games. We’ve got one more game in the Championship and then three warm-up games to complete that process.
“Maybe there was a little bit of over-eagerness form some of the guys and some of them were short of a game – you could see the guys who came on looked a little more battle-hardened. But we’re not making excuses.
“The guys who came back from South Africa only arrived on Tuesday morning and we felt that having a couple of guys here that would be better adapted to the time zones and give us a better chance.
“We knew there were pros and cons. In 2019 a similar thing probably happened, and we had guys who weren’t exposed to Australia, and we were also chasing the game – and we scored a try and kicked the ball out to draw the game.
“The guys who came on were battle-hardened and that’s why we decided not to go the way we did in 2019 and send over a full 15 fresh guys – we wanted to mix it.”