Steve Hansen aimed an ominous warning at South Africa Sunday saying his All Blacks scintillating performance against France was not yet their best.
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“All we’ve done today is earned a chance to play in a semi-final”, All Blacks captain Richie McCaw said, according to Sydney Morning Herald.
The French started by fighting toe to toe with the All Blacks, looking to disrupt their confidence by staying close on the scoreboard.
An exchange of penalty goals preceded the Retallick try, and French flyhalf Frederic Michalak limped off soon after, giving recalled scrumhalf Morgan Parra the kicking duties. “It’s going to be one hell of a contest”.
“Congratulations to New Zealand”, he said. “They are the Brazilians of the rugby world”.
The outgoing French boss Philippe Saint-Andre was booed in Cardiff in a week that saw reports of team mutiny.
“After such a defeat and the powerlessness and impotence we felt for most of the game, there’s not much more to say”.
Savea equalled Lomu and Springbok flyer Bryan Habana’s joint record of eight tries at a single World Cup tournament.
Left winger Julian Savea led the way with a superb hat-trick as the All Blacks secured the biggest winning margin in a World Cup quarter-final, eclipsing the mark set by South Africa in 1995 with a 42-14 win over Samoa.
No. 8 Louis Picamoles scored France’s try in the first half, but was sin-binned early into the second half.
“I assume a lot of responsibility, there is no problem about that, it’s part of the job”, said Saint-Andre, whose successor had been named before the World Cup.
He added: “I’ve had a very exciting four years, it has been unbelievable. We were hoping that three months of preparations would help us reach another dimension”.
But the revival was short-lived and Savea pushed away two tacklers and crashed over the line in the grasp of a third to send New Zealand into the break 29-13 up.
“As a coach yes of course there is shame tonight, it is more than difficult, that being said I want to thank my staff, the players that since July 5 have been working extremely hard”.
“We’re in our place”, he added.
“It’s something we’ve been doing for a wee while, and you get more comfortable the longer you do it”.
New Zealand have made the semi-finals in six of the seven previous rugby World Cups, but only gone on to win the title twice, in 1987 and 2011, both on home soil.
“Instead we took a yellow card and we conceded tries on counter-attacks”.
“They were extremely reactive, much faster than us, and then you realise that, well, we have good players but New Zealand have a reactivity, a speed an technique in defence of high quality”.
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On nearly each occasion, they have been the overwhelming favourites to win, but the heavy burden of expectation has proved fatal before, and the New Zealand team management are wary about the pitfalls of complacency.
