Scott Robertson’s undefeated run as All Blacks coach met a swift end in the opening round of The Rugby Championship. Five tense Tests and a third-place finish later, the coach was asked what he made of his side’s campaign.
Finishing strong with a 20-point victory over trans-Tasman rivals Australia, Robertson had more to smile about than he had in previous weeks, but the rocky results will not be quickly forgotten.
It was the first time New Zealand have surrendered their traditionally unyielding grip on The Rugby Championship trophy since 2019, a piece of unwanted history that was accompanied by a handful of unwanted statistics.
An inability to finish games was perhaps chief among the concerning trends, with discipline issues and struggles to finish opportunities also underlying the six rounds of competition.
For Robertson though, he’ll take the wins for what they’re worth.
“In the championship, we probably could have won every game,” he told media in Wellington. “There’s moments in those games we just learnt that there’s big momentum swings; if there’s ref calls or your own call or game management, there’s just key moments that you’ve just got to get right otherwise the momentum swings too much.
“One focus that we’ve spent a lot of time on is around our discipline and that’s still an area we’ve got to get better at. We put too much pressure on ourselves off the back of it. We’re going to address it, especially when we go north.
“We’re really pleased, really proud. I think the key thing to know is a lot of young guys have come in or players that have had two, three, four, five Test matches have really stood up to Test match level quickly. So, pleased overall.”
Those young players include budding star flanker Wallace Sititi, who produced another outstanding performance in the Wellington win. Fellow Test rookie Cortez Ratima also made his impact felt yet again, this time in a 19-minute cameo off the bench while Pasilio Tosi earned just his third run in the black jersey to help bring the win home in the final quarter.
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All Blacks captain Scott Barrett was asked a similar line of questioning to his coach and also delivered an honest yet optimistic analysis of the tournament, all with an eye on the future.
“I guess we’re trending, we’re learning – possibly not as quick as we’d like to but this team’s come together, we’re making adjustments.
“When we’ve let in tries in the 22 over The Rugby Championship it has been frustrating but tonight we showed plenty of grit there on the line. So, I think we set a standard there of what’s required, particularly on defence.
“heading north, they’ll challenge us in different areas, probably similar to South Africa, with home crowds momentum’s huge. There’ll be a lot of lessons to take forward to the tour and we’ll be excited by that.”
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