All Blacks still far from perfect
The All Blacks already bagged the Rugby Championship with a 36-10 win over Argentina last weekend.
However, it was indeed not smooth sailing admits the assistant coach Ian Foster.
The All Blacks' tremendous first half laid the foundation for their victory, nonetheless, it's the second-half form that is a concern especially with a 'hard week' ahead of their final encounter against arch-rivals the Springboks.
"As a coach, you have to be patient and just ride through the moments that don’t work so well – and that is the position we are recovering from. In Buenos Aires a lot of what we doing in the first half was good and what we did later wasn’t.
"I think last week we weren't connected, everyone was seeing different pitches. Having said that, We have identified the issues and now we have to start the process of sorting them out.
"Giving that this is our hard week, we are forced to respond quickly.
"I think we got to get the brains adjusted and clear, therefore we don’t do a lot of on-field training.
"I think this is our hard week and we just got to be smart with the time we use.
"It’s a slightly different angle on how we usually prepare but the goal is same – we want everyone on the same page, understand what we want to achieve and it's important how we adapt and adjust in the game,"
Foster has also revealed that despite their Rugby Championship success rate, which includes a 57-0 win over Springboks in Albany – they overall perfomance and his side's inability to complete a full 80-minutes could be the side's Achilles heel.
"The world defines success or failure with the win or loss, but the other way to look at success is we that successful with the way we played [in the second half in Buenos Aires] and the answer is no. Thus, it’s a matter of where we can get better.
"There is certainly no complacency in what we want to do, and we want to put a full 80 minutes in on the park, which we haven’t done yet.
"I know the 57-0 win [in Albany] was special but the [Boks] had a lot of possession in the first 40 minutes of the game and had us under a lot of pressure.
"The Springboks have the desire to play and we certainly saw that in the Argentina and Australia Test. I think what happened in [Albany] is a poor indicator of what is going to happen at Newlands,"
By Leezil Hendricks
@Leezil07
@rugby365com
