Relieved All Blacks break through
All Blacks captain Richie McCaw was especially pleased with his side's second-half performance against the Pumas in difficult conditions in Wellington.
The world champions were frustrated by a pumped up Pumas side in the opening forty minutes of their Rugby Championship clash on Saturday, taking a slender 6-5 lead into the break, but came out and asserted their authority with a more accurate display in the second half.
McCaw was happy with the way his team responded after being put under pressure to secure a comfortable 21-5 victory in the end, scoring 15 unanswered points after half-time.
"They put us under a bit of pressure but I was really proud of the way we came out in the second half, we spent most of the time at the right end of the field and I guess that pressure told at the end.
"We didn't respect the ball either, we tried to move the ball under a bit of pressure when we should have held on to it. We got better in the second half when we attacked around the fringes and got our game going and that put them under pressure," he said.
The main feature of the Pumas' game was their commitment on defence, and McCaw admitted that his team were forced to adjust their game by the fierce tackling of the South American side.
"We tried to go through them at the start and they had some pretty good defence there, when we started to go around the edges that is what opened up the space," he said.
The All Blacks skipper refelcted on a mixed display in the set-pieces which saw his team under pressure at scrum-time but dominate the line-outs.
"We were quite frustrated with the scrum, we couldn't quite get it right but on both our ball and their ball our line-out was pretty good," he said.
Pumas captain Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe said that although it was satisfying to have had the All Blacks under pressure, they simply could not keep the intensity up after half-time.
"Of course we are proud, it was very tough, the intensity got to us in the second half. We gave everything, that is our goal and to improve every game," he said.
Fernandez Lobbe said that his team pride themselves on their work-rate on defence, and added that the focus will now be to upset the Wallabies next week.
"We take a lot of pride in our defence, I think defence is where you show the spirit you have got for your teammates. We need to improve on our attack and we are going to work this week to get better for Australia.
"I think we are improving with every game, our goal is to get better, we are playing against the top three teams in the world," he said.
