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TOULOUSE - All Blacks captain Richie McCaw vowed that now the business end of the World Cup was under way, his team would be "playing for keeps".
New Zealand have cruised through its pool games, amassing a staggering 309 points and 45 tries, and conceding only 35 points.
They hammered Italy (76-14), Portugal (108-13), Scotland (40-0) and Romania (85-8) to head into the quarter-finals in Cardiff with many observers claiming they might be "undercooked".
But McCaw said that the knock-out phase of the 20-team tournament would see the All Blacks firm up their resolve.
"We are playing for keeps from now on in," the openside flanker said.
"Our guys are pretty confident, everyone's had a bit of rugby and we have to be on the job next week. Most of the guys are available.
"We have now put pool play aside and we are pretty happy and we just now have to get on with the business now."
Coach Graham Henry said his team must improve ahead of next weekend's quarter-final, the opponent for which is likely to be France, but will be decided on Sunday.
"It was pleasing but there is obviously still room for improvement," said the former Wales coach after his side's demolition of Romania.
"Finals are finals, and there are some very good rugby sides.
"Are we worried about it (the quarter-finals)? In the back of your mind, you're always concerned by knock-out rugby.
"Hopefully we'll play well in the first knock-out game in a week's time."
He added: "We're looking forward to the finals. We need to express ourselves and play to our potential.
"The players have a strength in mind, and a desire to play high-quality games and win this tournament."
Scrum-half Andrew Ellis, winning his first cap as a starter against Romania, admitted: "We have a bit to work on.
"We will work hard on fixing the mistakes that we made in this game. If we do that we will be pretty confident about our chances."
The All Blacks' high-octane mix of attempting to offload in the tackle at any cost has raised concern that the team were treating the pool games like training matches.
Nick Evans, who started the game at full-back but ended it at outside-half, said the backs' tactics had been clear.
"We put it on ourselves in the backs to finish off what they (the forwards) were doing and in the second-half we played a lot better than we did in the first," he said.
"We talked at half time of really dominating at the break down, clearing the guys out of the way and finding some really quick ball and probably in the last half we opened up a bit more and that was as a result of clearing it up."
- AFP
