Young All Blacks impress Hansen

The All Blacks silenced some of their critics with a scintillating second-half performance against France in the third Test in Dunedin on Saturday, but coach Steve Hansen was pleased it was just another step on the way to next year’s World Cup.

They fielded arguably one of their most inexperienced sides in the past decade with four debutants and only two starting forwards with more than 50 caps each, while Damian Mckenzie was starting his first Test at fly-half.

After facing an arm wrestle for the first 45 minutes, however, they cut loose in the final 30 as they ran in four unanswered tries, three for winger Rieko Ioane, to win the three-match series.

Lock Scott Barrett, given a starting role for the series after Brodie Retallick was ruled out with a broken bone in his chest, was arguably the player of the match. “Pretty happy,” Hansen said of the nature of the victory and the development of his side in the series, which he had targeted as pivotal for developing the tactics they will take into next year’s Rugby World Cup in Japan.

“Some of the things we were working on are starting to pay off. We had a lot of young fellas out there, and I think we have got a marker on them.”

France stand-in captain Baptiste Serin said: “Playing the best team in the world does give you experience. We are a young team, and we played a good first half.”