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At times, it has been a rough ride for Daniel Carter this season.
The All Blacks backline commander damaged nerves in his neck and shoulder when he returned to the Super 14, rolled an ankle against France and had not quite clicked with his goalkicking and general play - not until Saturday night on a sodden Eden Park when he kicked 21 points as he guided his side around the park.
It was a quality display in the conditions, only one errant goalkick out of eight, while his handling, defence and positional kicking were all up with the performances New Zealand has come to rely on from the 25-year-old.
It was an evening of some consequence if the All Blacks had lost again to the Wallabies, it was the sort of pressure Carter relished, the sort of challenge he fancied.
"Obviously it is great playing in these real pressure games, with everything riding on the line," he said.
"You could not wish for anything better and I sort of love these occasions and like to lift for these games especially and I guess I did that to an extent."
Carter felt his play had improved from Melbourne, that defeat and subsequent analysis had sorted out a number of areas in his play. He had to make further alterations on Saturday as the rain bucketed down in Auckland.
"We had a wee talk about it this afternoon, the what ifs because there was a fair chance of it raining strongly. In the warmup it poured down so it kicked in that we had to play a lot tighter. We could not throw it round as much and had to play the right end of the field."
The All Blacks started with that intent but their possession evaporated as they lost their lineouts and had no scrums from which to launch any starter moves. After some "stern words" at halftime though and briefing about a change of lineout tactics, the All Blacks got more ball.
"As the game went on I thought we got a lot smarter, adjusted and played a lot better."
It was often difficult to ignore the attacking prowess of players like Luke McAlister, Isaia Toeava and the back three but in weather like that on Saturday, it had to be the best option.
"It is pretty much drummed into us. We wanted to put the ball behind them and have a good chase line and that altered the pressure," said Carter.
"We thought we had to lift as a team. We were almost going through the game waiting for something to happen so we made a real effort to go out there and be that person to change things and while doing that play at the right end of the field turning them around and I guess we did that."
The All Blacks had spent the bulk of the opening spell on defence and had 40 minutes to find some redemption but Carter said he was not nervous it was going to be a repeat of the McG.
