All Blacks: Cool Carter refuses to panic

As All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has said several times already at this World Cup, you can't buy experience, so in Dan Carter he had the perfect man to cope with having skipper Richie McCaw and fellow veteran Conrad Smith in the sinbin.

Carter was, as the old saying goes, as cool as the other side of a pillow as things got a bit helter-skelter for the defending champions. A record crowd of 90,000 sensed another upset at this already thrilling tournament, as did, probably, the hundreds of millions watching on television.

But Carter, who kicked seven from seven shots at goal and missed only one of nine tackles in his 107th test, just kept doing what he was doing - playing what he saw and making small adjustments along the way.

"We lost a couple of key leaders in the side and it was a matter of getting our hands on the ball and trying to control the game, hence kicking the ball longer from the kick-offs and getting the ball back from a lineout or kick-counter," Carter said.

"I thought we did that reasonably well. We had to play with 14 or 13 men but we stepped up and it was still early enough in the game ... when they came back on they combined with how the reserves played and really lifted the guys."

How the All Blacks responded to the pressure the Pumas exerted and the loss of McCaw and Smith to the bin was a real positive for Steve Hansen, as was the fact his team appeared to come through the battle unscathed in terms of major injuries.

Image 1 of 17: Aaron Smith dives over to score for the All Blacks. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The test could set his side up for the battle of the quarter-final but in the meantime the All Blacks might have to adjust their defensive techniques. Carter was almost flawless with his tackling - and only McCaw (11) made more than him - but there was too much high stuff among his teammates.

"We were falling off tackles," Carter admitted. "We were tackling too high and they were getting in behind us. We just couldn't get our defensive line set ... credit to the Argentina side, they attacked very well, through our heart [middle], and we just couldn't get any momentum."

In terms of the Pumas' defence, a well-organised wall spurred on by the majority of the crowd, Carter could see space in behind and that experience of dealing with a rushing style could also come in handy later in the competition.

"There was a little bit of space in behind them," he said. "They had a pretty good defensive wall in front of us and there was only a fullback or No9 sweeping in behind so we could have used our kicking game. We talked about that at halftime."

Falling behind by a further three points thanks to an offside call against Owen Franks - who constantly flirts with danger in this regard - was another setback after the break, but the impact of the replacements Sonny Bill Williams, Beauden Barrett and Charlie Faumuina, plus Victor Vito and Sam Cane, was a major factor in their side digging themselves out of their hole.

"That's the expectation of all the players who come off the bench," Carter said. "Sonny was fantastic, he carried the ball strongly as did all the guys who came on."