Wales star wing George North was ruled out of the All Blacks series on Monday, adding to a mounting injury toll that leaves the tourists looking for fringe players to step up.
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“Chatting to a lot of the guys they said they felt pretty good and then when it got to that 65-minute mark that’s when you go into slightly different territory”, said Warburton.
Wales coach Warren Gatland conceded his side could not match the All Blacks superior conditioning.
George North had a great night, skinning Savea a couple of times, but the selectors will most likely back the All Black wing to tidy up his positioning by improving his reaction time and reading the play better.
The second Test is in Wellington next Saturday.
The All Blacks flanker Sam Cane said the senior leadership group were impressed with the way the less experienced squad members refused to panic even when Wales were up 18-15 and hammering the hosts tryline just before half-time.
Despite the odds being stacked against the home team at Waikato Stadium on Tuesday night, captain Stephen Donald is promising to throw the kitchen sink at the Red Dragons. “I think at times we were a little bit off the pace for us”. “So I think she spent about $7000 on tickets or something like that”.
Smith took the quick tap that led to Naholo’s pivotal second half try and the No. 9 agrees it was the turning point of the match.
For Wales, Taulupe Faletau and Rhys Webb scored tries, with Dan Biggar contributing a conversion and three penalties. “He caused the All Blacks a lot of problems, so it is a big loss for us”, said Gatland.
“We haven’t played like that in the past, not because the coaches haven’t wanted us to, but because we haven’t taken those risks ourselves”.
“We were more surprised about the step up from Super Rugby to Test level that caught me by surprise a bit”, said Kaino. There were also several occasions when the backline was slow to see that Wales were counter-attacking and both Julian Savea and Waisake Naholo were guilty of giving their opposites too much room.
Gatland has been forced to play Scott Williams, Gareth Davies, Rob Evans, Scott Baldwin, Tomas Francis, Jake Ball and Ellis Jenkins against the two-time Super Rugby champions, and has also asked Bradley Davies, Ross Moriarty and Gareth Anscombe to possibly double up off the bench.
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“They are very well organised, obviously very well coached”.
