Beauden Barrett injected some fresh pace after coming off the bench against Uruguay. Photo / Photosport.
Beauden Barrett injected some fresh pace after coming off the bench against Uruguay. Photo / Photosport.
Gregor Paul in Lyon
The All Blacks know that the reality of the quarter-finals will hit them this week and the pressure will jump, the intensity will surge and the last three weeks will feel like a distant memory.
And because they know all that is coming, and that thepicture will change dramatically, they don’t feel like they are going to be blindsided by what lies ahead.
No one is kidding themselves that the last three weeks have presented the All Blacks with the same sort of challenges they will face in Paris next Sunday night.
But nor is it the case that the players are discarding the last three wins as non-formative.
Beating Namibia, Italy and Uruguay has enabled the All Blacks to believe they are a better team now than the one they were four weeks ago when they lost to France.
The last three weeks didn’t put the All Blacks under the same sort of pressure they will be under in the quarter-final – didn’t present them with the same range of challenges that they will face next week – but they did enable confidence to be built.
It’s intangible of course, but there is some power to be drawn from self-belief, and conviction in both the gameplan and the ability to successfully implement it.
Confidence is to be welcomed, treasured even, at this stage of the tournament and better surely for the All Blacks to be in the last eight feeling like they can play this game and play it well.
“Obviously it is going to be another level,” veteran midfielder Anton Lienert-Brown said of the looming quarter-final.
“Italy are a good team and we have got to take confidence that we turned up and did a job on them and Uruguay put us under pressure, and we managed to get out of that pressure.
“But look, we know that the opposition ahead are world-class but, again, if we focus on the outcome and the opposition, I don’t think we are focusing on the right things.
“We can take confidence in what we have done and build the belief in this camp. The confidence will come from the work we have put in.
“From the disappointment against France, we got the job done against Namibia and had a good week in Bordeaux, two good weeks against Italy and Uruguay and we have just got to trust in the hard work we have put in.
“We have improved since our first game in this tournament.”
Leicester Fainga'anuku runs in for one of his three tries against Uruguay. Photo / Photosport
The All Blacks’ conviction that they have improved since they lost to France is founded on a strong evidential basis.
The core parts of their game have functioned exceptionally well. Their scrum has been unstoppable. Their lineout has been disruptive and their discipline has been greatly improved.
But the biggest shift they have made is in the quality of their defence. There were lapses against Italy, which seemed to over-excite a few analysts who decided that the All Blacks were defensively vulnerable as a result.
Italy found space when they worked the ball wide as they were able to get on the outside of the defensive screen.
These were bad moments for the All Blacks, but they were moments and not representative of the bigger picture.
New Zealand’s defence didn’t appear frail at all against Italy, but in fact a key weapon for them and the whole intensity and accuracy of the system shifted up another gear against Uruguay.
The South Americans had prolonged periods of possession, particularly in the first half, and while they were able to probe effectively against France to score two tries, they constantly ran into a black wall in Lyon.
Captain Sam Cane leads the charge against Uruguay. Photo / Photosport
The defensive system was at its imperious best, with tacklers making decisive and clean hits, enabling the All Blacks to have 13 or even 14 men on their feet at almost all times.
It meant there was nowhere for Uruguay to go, no space for them to find and typically they would hold possession for three or four phases before the All Blacks were able to isolate the ball carrier and win a turnover.
And it’s the quality of the All Blacks’ defence in the last two weeks especially which has been such a major factor in enabling them to score a combined 25 tries.
As Lienert-Brown said: “They [Uruguay] are a good attacking side and the first thing we said at the start of the year is that good defence will win you a World Cup.
“We have put a lot of time into our defence. We have been scoring a lot of points but if you look at where we have been scoring a lot of it is coming off the back of our defence and it isn’t just phase play – it starts with our scrum and our defensive lineout has been going well.
“It is nice to see guys scoring tries, but games are won on defence.”
