All Blacks coach Ian Foster believes he’s seen a glimpse of where his All Blacks can get to before next year’s World Cup after an emphatic bounceback display against Argentina in Hamilton.
But Foster was also doing his best to stay grounded after the All Blacks’ seven tries to nil, 53-3 demolition of Argentina that squares their Rugby Championship ledger at 2-2, and puts them right back into the title race ahead of back-to-back Bledisloes to finish things off.
It was a vastly improved All Blacks performance in unpromising, drizzly conditions in Foster’s home town on Saturday night – almost as impressive as last week’s historic 25-18 defeat to the same team in Christchurch had been deflating. The All Blacks varied their attack beautifully, stepped up markedly at the breakdown, and executed with vastly better precision and intent than they had managed just seven days earlier.
Hannah Peters/Getty Images
Ardie Savea and the All Blacks mustered a magnificent response to last week’s Argentina misstep.
But a more relaxed looking Foster told the media afterwards he did not feel like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders courtesy of his team’s most complete performance of the year, if not their most important (that, clearly, had been the Ellis Park turnaround that saved his job).
“No. It’s the life of a coach,” he said with a grim smile. “All we’ve done is put ourselves back into contention. From a championship (perspective) we’ve still got plenty to do, so we’ll roll our sleeves up and get stuck into our work.
“[But] I’m just proud of the way we’ve worked hard to get our game where we want it to be. It hasn’t happened at the speed we’d like it to, but we saw signs of that tonight. There is no doubt the team has felt a whole lot of different pressure … I was just proud of the way the guys have hung in there and not got tight under the pressure and played with a bit of ambition.
“I’m particularly proud of [skipper Sam Cane] next to me for his week. He has been under the pump from various quarters, but I thought he might have answered a few questions tonight too.”
Bruce Lim/AP
New Zealand’s Rieko Ioane dives for a try during the 53-3 Rugby Championship victory over Argentina in Hamilton.
And nothing pleased the head coach more than the way his team stuck to their task in a match they had probably made safe in the first quarter.
“It was a big week for us. We had to respond, and I thought we did it in a really ruthless manner,” he added. “There were a lot of questions about putting the same group out again, but I really believe in the direction we’re going and am delighted with the response against a pretty enthusiastic Argentina team.”
Foster brushed off any Bledisloe significance to the result, though undoubtedly the confidence gained from a seven-try breakout will be important for the All Blacks.
“It’s significant in the Rugby Championship, first and foremost,” he said. “This championship is important for us and we put ourselves in a bit of a hole last week. We had to respond and to walk away with a bonus point and a big points differential in a tight competition at least keeps us in the race.
“We’ll enjoy that and wake up tomorrow and start worrying about the next one. We’ve got two to go and we’re going to have to have two good performances to have a chance at this championship.”
The coach was also rapt with the tactical acumen his team showed after he had challenged them in that area after Christchurch.
“If you look back, the first 50-odd minutes last week the tactical response was really good too, but we lost a bit of the vision in our game that last quarter. We’ve flagged that’s been a big work-on to get the balance right through the game.
“The read of it was really good early (in Hamilton). We got reward for it, we got reward for a lot of our ball carries and some of the runs we were making. The interpretation at the breakdown was very different from last week and that gave us the confidence to play a little bit more and hence we saw the spectacle we saw.”
And in terms of the overall attack, led by a Rieko Ioane breakout performance, Foster said the “ambition” impressed him most.
“We didn’t let the conditions blind us to taking space when it was on. We had the confidence to do it. It wasn’t picture perfect early … and there were a few things that weren’t perfect, but I love that mindset when this team plays like that.”
