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'I thought they [All Blacks] weren't very clinical. They dropped a lot of ball, lost a lot of lineout.'

The All Blacks celebrate their Rugby Championship title

New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen had no complaints after the All Blacks retained their Rugby Championship crown with a hard-fought win over Argentina.

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The All Blacks were 35-17 victors against the Pumas in Buenos Aires as the world champions secured the title for a third consecutive year on Saturday.

New Zealand were upstaged by South Africa in their previous outing but avoided back-to-back defeats for the first time since 2011 thanks to Rieko Ioane’s double.

The All Blacks led 21-3 at half-time after Ioane crossed over twice before Argentina mounted a late comeback in the capital city.

Hansen – who made six changes to the side before Luke Whitelock was a late withdrawal due to illness – told Sky Sport: “Parts of it were messy but there were other parts that were really good and at times we played some good footy and other times we didn’t play that great.

>”But you’ve got to give a bit of credit to Argentina they’re a very difficult side to play against, and particularly here.

“Five tries, got the bonus point and got the Rugby Championship so I can’t complain too much.”

“We were better. But you don’t go from naught to 100 straight away,” Hansen added.  “There will be some more learnings for us, but when you look at who was out there on the park at the end, it was a pretty young group, so you have to be really pleased with how they coped with some of the pressure. 

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“I thought our kicking was better tonight, maybe not as accurate as we would like, but we kicked to the right places, and at the right times, a lot more than we did a couple of weeks ago.”

Pumas head coach Mario Ledesma, meanwhile, lamented a missed opportunity, having lost their 27 previous Tests against the All Blacks.

“I thought they [All Blacks] weren’t very clinical. They dropped a lot of ball, lost a lot of lineout. If we played better, we could have put them under a lot of pressure,” Ledesma said.

“The only thing I wanted to see from the boys was ourselves, and I couldn’t see it tonight.”

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J
JW 52 minutes ago
Leicester Fainga'anuku denied All Blacks eligibility for TRC

I’m not sure where that’s going but does it raise a valid point? Yes would be the answer you’re angling for?


It was (on air here) last year, but not this year. I haven’t seen why, my guess was that it’s because no English version comes out from the “closed off billionaires league” and they couldn’t get an english one. I think they have to get it from the UK broadcasters and maybe that market changed this year?


The quality of it wasn’t my point, purely correlation of those performances to ones at home. He is the only one over there, there was no marker for ABs to valuate from. He wasn’t a solid choice, in that you knew what you were getting, he was still more of a sensation in the All Blacks, and he was playing a different position.


Those are just direct points to counter JBs thoughts. I’m not saying they were used in any way (I think theyd have to be part of why NZR have the current eligibility rules though), this situation was simply a matter of starting at the back of the class if you’re not here. Only vets can earn sabbaticals (which is essentially what people are asking for in this case). There’s no argument this isn’t the right call.


As with the topic in the above paragraph, we could go on and on about it, but I will say I did see after the fact the final was broadcast FTA (no that I’d watch live, still have yet to watch the replay) straight off mondos website (im guessing it was a laggy pos tho), which is/was good. I also wanted to watch Brad Weber and Lester last year (start of the season) so went on line for a few (and tried to catch Max Hicks), that Brad was fabulous, Lester less so. Lester was also less that good in this international window. So I did see enough to know they are very different games, and I can tell it’s going to take him a while to get on his feet here again.

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