“There’s just a genuine excitement about trying to do something that every team that comes to the World Cup wants to do”. And it is incredible !
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We knew who the All Blacks were and felt we could win. They also gave up just three points while back-rower Pablo Matera was in the sin-bin.
Only one of Sunday’s pack, former captain Juan Fernandez Lobbe, did not play in Argentina’s surprise 37-25 win over the Springboks a week earlier in their closing Rugby Championship clash in Durban.
“They’ll probably use what happened to us in 2007 as an example of how we weren’t really at the races when it came to a French team who got the job done, and the experience of guys like Richie McCaw and Dan Carter will be crucial in that”.
However, it was a sign that the All Blacks were starting to gain an edge as they upped the pace of the game.
We’ll be doing the Hakarena from now on though.
Steven Hansen’s side had 74% territory after the break as they pulled away first as Aaron Smith went over to put them in front before the scrum-half laid the ball on for Sam Cane to secure victory.
It was far from straightforward, though, with Puma resistance and All Black indiscipline playing a part before the late flourish, when Sonny Bill Williams was influential.
Memories of that era linger on and in the lead up to Sunday’s match the All Blacks have repeatedly spoken of how they expect a bruising forward battle where Argentina’s rolling maul produced two tries when they met in a Rugby Championship Test in July.
All-Black legend McCaw will look to become the first man in history to lift back-to-back World Cups when the tournament begins at Twickenham tonight.
Richie McCaw was sin binned for the third time for New Zealand, no All Black has been yellow carded more (level with Kees Meeuws, Sam Whitelock and Tony Woodcock).
“I think the two yellow cards were pretty dumb”, Hansen told reporters after the match. But that turned out to be as good as it got for Argentina as the All Black finally clicked into some sort of gear.
McCaw would like nothing more than to win his second title in what promises to be the last World Cup of his glittering career. Carter converts and it’s New Zealand 26-16 Argentina.
You have to be so fit and then when it gets to that crunch time at the 60-minute mark you have to have impact from your bench and not lose your shape.
Instead, it was an example of the array of quality at their disposal and the fact that even when some of their most trusted team men are off, others are capable of stepping in and offering a course correction.
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Argentina’s ferocious tackling. New Zealand may have won the match in the end but the work rate and intensity of the Argentina defence will have won many admirers and frightened potential knockout opposition, such as France and Ireland.
