This feels as big as the World Cup final, says Kaino
New Zealand flanker Jerome Kaino insists Saturday’s decider against the British and Irish Lions feels like a World Cup final.
The Lions’ victory in Wellington has set up a winner-takes-all showdown at Eden Park and Kaino believes the intensity has gone up a notch as the All Blacks look to avoid suffering consecutive home defeats for the first time since 1998.
Kaino has even compared the game to the past two World Cup finals, both of which he started and New Zealand won.
“It definitely has that feel,” Kaino said when asked whether the game merited comparison to the finals against France in 2011 and Australia two years ago.
“The excitement we had at training backs that up. The Lions are a great side and there’s a lot of history between these teams, so being oneall it does have that feeling about it. I’m getting excited about the prospect of being able to play them.
“There has definitely been a bit of edge there [in training]. The guys are excited. We know the areas we need to improve on, and we know if we do that, then we will get the result we want.”
New Zealand’s main selection dilemma revolves around the centre positions, with Sonny Bill Williams now suspended having been given a four-week ban for his red card after 22 minutes of the second Test. Yet there is mounting pressure on Beauden Barrett, the team’s golden boy, who has not shone so far.
“This series for him, it means a lot, and he wants to make a mark,” said assistant coach Ian Foster. “I’m sure he’ll do that. He’s been leading this group magnificently. He showed a lot of composure and class with the way he went about things in the circumstances [in the second Test]. It probably didn’t suit his style and yet he got us to a really nice position. We had so many penalties coming our way and that changed the way we had to play, because we weren’t able to get beyond the first couple of rucks.”
Constant discussions about “physicality” and “discipline” have highlighted the problem in modern rugby for players seeking to dominate opponents in a high-speed game while staying on the right side of the law. “As you saw at the weekend, both teams are quite keen to get amongst it,” Kaino said. “We’re not going to go out there being cautious about anything. We want to impose ourselves physically, like they did at the weekend.
“It’s an area we want to improve in. On the discipline side, we’re going to have to be on top of that.”