'Hollow feeling' for McCaw
The All Blacks missed out on a world record winning streak when they were held to a 12-all draw by the Wallabies in the Rugby Championship opener in Sydney on Saturday.
The world champions were chasing a record 18 straight victories, but were denied by their Bledisloe Cup rivals Australia in wet, slippery conditions at the Olympic stadium.
The draw means the New Zealanders equalled, but could not better, the 17-Test winning runs of the 1965 to 1969 All Blacks and 1997 to 1998 Springboks.
The match finished try-less with flyhalves Aaron Cruden and Kurtley Beale both kicking four penalties.
"It's certainly a bit of a hollow feeling," All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw said.
"You come to win and it didn't happen and probably at the end of the day we had the better of the first 30 minutes in the first half and then we struggled to play a lot of rugby after that for various reasons.
"The good thing is that we have another crack next week in Auckland."
The Wallabies had the chance to win the game when they had the ball deep inside New Zealand's half in the final minutes but were unable to have a crack at a winning drop-goal.
"[The drop-goal] was mentioned but we couldn't get through that first phase. That was a problem for us all through the night," Wallabies skipper Michael Hooper said.
"We were pressuring them a lot, especially in that second half… We came up a few metres short a couple of times, which is a positive thing."
AFP
