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'I thought they [All Blacks] weren't very clinical. They dropped a lot of ball, lost a lot of lineout.'
By Sacha Pisani
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.
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.
"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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Latest Comments
I didn't mean to sound down on Dmac. Just looking hard at the bench sub's role of providing impact. I don't think he can do that at 15, and the bench is not really about injury cover anymore (you need to maximise it's use more than that).
He's my first choice of any New Zealander for the 10 jersey with the All Blacks.
Go to commentsAgreed. And I don't have much more to say on it, but I had been having one thought that sprang to mind at the tail of this discussion, and that is that it's not all about Razor.
It's not about any coach being "right". I think a lot of selections can become defense and while it doesn't really apply here I really enjoyed that Andy Farrell just gave into the public demands and changed out his team for the change that had been asked for. Like why not? This is the countries team, keep them engaged. The whole reason i've only just finished watching the game was because I wasn't interested in watching any of the selected players against a team like Italy (still actually enjoyed the first half with the contest Italy made of it).
Faz leap frogs a younger half back into start. He hands the golden child the game over July's golden child. He gives an old winger a go, a new flanker and hooker. None of them really did any good, certainly not enough to suggest they should have been promoted above others, but who cares? You won, and you gave the country what they wanted, that's all that matters after all. It's for the country, not the one in charge who thinks they have to have their own pied piper tune playing.
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