All Blacks need to make a statement after scratchy effort
Namibia might not be the only team at the Rugby World Cup that grew just a little in confidence after their 58-14 loss to the All Blacks.
The concern for coach Steve Hansen will be that more legitimate contenders are beginning to see his team as distinctly beatable after an ill-disciplined win over Argentina and a scratchy effort against the tournament’s bottom ranked team.
Crushing Georgia in Cardiff on October 3 just took on more significance.
Namibia’s inspirational captain and blindside flanker Jacques Burger summed up the general feeling at Olympic Stadium after his underdogs managed to hustle and annoy the defending World Cup champions for reasonable lengths of time.
‘‘A lot of these boys are eight to fivers and to play the All Blacks on the world stage was a special moment for us,’’ he said in reference to the large group of amateurs in the squad. ‘‘But I’m glad the uncertainty is over and the boys can realise it’s just another 15 humans we are playing against. They are incredible rugby players no doubt, but it’s the uncertainty of the deep ocean where you don’t know what’s under the water and you are afraid of it.’’
Another performance like this and the All Blacks likely quarterfinal opponents Ireland or France might start to take a similar view.
Hansen was taking a glass-halffull view of his side’s second pool match and vented his frustration at the endless second half stoppages that deflated the atmosphere under the stadium’s vast roof.
‘‘It was frustrating, but we got a good 80 minutes. Twenty nine of our 31 players have now played, we scored nine tries, which was a good effort.’’
‘‘It’s very hard to play rugby when you get a stop start game like that . . . it’s a good learning curve to deal with stuff like that going forward.’’
The All Blacks weren’t awful. There were some good performances from second fiveeighth Sonny Bill Williams, wing Nehe Milner-Skudder, and lock Luke Romano.
There was improvement from big wing Julian Savea, who bulldozed in for two tries, Beauden Barrett produced some memorable moments and hooker Codie Taylor got around with zip.
But Hansen’s frustration at the officials – some of TMO George Ayoub’s needless interjections were intolerable and unfair to the crowd of 51,820 – will be mirrored by aspects of the All Blacks play.
There was a noticeable lack of ball runners in the pack. Victor Vito started with a hiss, but tailed off, while Jerome Kaino hit hard in defence, but didn’t impose himself around the rucks with ball in hand.
That was left to Savea and Williams, but mostly the ball was just chucked wide before the platform had been laid or phases built. The backs scored seven tries, but at times looked too flat and struggled with a rushing defence.
There were efforts to be more direct in the final quarter when Richie McCaw and Kieran Read took the field, but by then the match had unfortunately degenerated into a tedious procession of injury breaks, TMO calls and re-set scrums.
Halfback TJ Perenara was hesitant and the All Blacks phase attack drops a notch without Aaron Smith, who is arguably the single most important player in the squad.
The question now is what sort of side Hansen will put out against Georgia.
They shape as a far tougher prospect than the courageous Namibians and although they won’t pose a threat to the All Blacks winning streak, they could further dent their aura unless improvements are made.