All Blacks focus on resurgent Argentina
Pumas will arrive in New Zealand full of confidence after beating Springboks
Australia have been dispatched and now the All Blacks turn their attention to an Argentina side who will travel to New Zealand on a high after their victory over South Africa yesterday.
The All Blacks, who retained the Bledisloe Cup with a 29-9 win over the Wallabies in Wellington, will reassemble in Hamilton next Sunday for the test against the Pumas at Waikato Stadium in a fortnight.
Victory against Argentina, who beat the Springboks 26-24 in Salta, will put them in a commanding position in the Rugby Championship with tests against the Pumas in Buenos Aires and the Boks in Durban to come.
The win by Hansen’s men at Westpac Stadium wasn’t quite as emphatic as the week before in Sydney, won 42-8, but it proved again that the All Blacks are on a different level in their skill level and game understanding.
In the two tests against their transtasman rivals, the All Blacks scored 10 tries while conceding only one. They blooded a new talent in secondfive Anton Lienert-Brown and coped well with the spoiling tactics of Australia, who arrived in Wellington with a refusal to take a backwards step but left demoralised, their coach Michael Cheika resorting to a swipe at the performance of referee Romain Poite and the Frenchman’s non-existent pre-test meeting with Hansen.
Australia’s next assignment is a test against South Africa in Brisbane in a fortnight. Already at a low ebb after their sixth consecutive test defeat, another loss would pile more pressure on Cheika.
The All Blacks machine, which stuttered on occasion in the drizzle in Wellington in the face of a vastly improved defensive effort from the Wallabies, is clearly on the right track, and Hansen will have more options in terms of personnel in a fortnight.
Midfielder Ryan Crotty and hooker Codie Taylor will be available to play the Pumas, Hansen revealing yesterday that the Crusaders pair, out with concussion, could have played last night if required.
Argentina will ask different questions of the All Blacks in terms of their set piece, but it’s hard to see how they can seriously challenge the world champions, who have now won 13 tests in a row.
The performance of 21-year-old Lienert-Brown on debut was special and Dane Coles’ performance at hooker suggested he is one of the best tight forwards in the game.
Told the result of the test between the Pumas and Springboks, Hansen said: “It’s going to make our Hamilton game a goodie, isn’t it? They were pretty unlucky [against South Africa] last time. That’s good. Both of those sides are playing well and it’s now for us to take a wee breather and in the middle of the week we’ll start to look at them a bit more thoroughly.”
There is unquestionably a lot of pleasure for the All Blacks in sealing the Bledisloe Cup for the 14th year in succession, but little for the pain that Australian rugby is going through. Former skipper Richie McCaw spoke beforehand of his hope that the test in Wellington would be more of a contest than the humiliation in Sydney, with Hansen saying afterwards it was important for the game that the Wallabies bounced back.
“We want a strong Southern Hemisphere game and we want our closest neighbours to be really strong,” he said. “They’ll come right, though.”