The All Blacks were leading by 21 points at halftime, and you got the feeling they could run away with it in the second half, after dominating the lineout and the scrum in the first 40 minutes.

That was far from the case, as Argentina managed to wrestle themselves back in the game at the start of the second half, scoring back-to-back converted tries.

For All Blacks assistant coach Scott Hansen, he was disappointed with the 20-minute period after halftime, during which they gave Argentina the opportunity to close the gap.

“The word would be challenging, not so comfy sitting in the box watching that,” Hansen told Jason Pine on Newstalk ZB.

“Some messages at halftime around how we continued to apply pressure didn’t quite get that the way we wanted to, so there were some learnings, but we need to be better than that.”

Despite the first 20 minutes after halftime being a bit sloppy, Hansen was pleased with the way the All Blacks bounced back and scored a couple of late tries to confirm the bonus point.

“It’s a fair question to ask about the final 20; what it gave us was a bonus point win, so we’ll take that.

“We’ll acknowledge the first 20 minutes in the second half, and also the end of the game, where we managed it better around our momentum, and defended that we were better in the middle field, and the like.

“So it’s a big question, but what we’re going to understand also is that we’re happy to get the bonus point one and get out of here, take our learnings, and we’ll get into Buenos Aires next week.”

Hansen explains that they did do things well with ball in hand, especially up front with the lineout maul.

“When we shifted the ball well, when we had good momentum, we were hard to handle. So that’s really positive around our game.

“Put some really good pressure around our set piece, I think we can be really proud and confident of what our scrum and also our driving maul.

“So there’s definitely really positive platforms to work off. Jason Ryan is doing a great job there for us, so a lot of positives around that.”

Fixture

Rugby Championship

Argentina

New Zealand

Pine asked Hansen about whether the All Blacks assistant coach believes his team has improved since the home France series, ahead of some big upcoming Test matches in the Rugby Championship.

“I think we continue to improve. This is again, around our set piece and defensively in the middle of the field at some stages there, collision wise, really good.

“There are always areas we want to be better in, and the thing with the boys coming in the shed was a lot of them said straight away, Monday’s review is going to show us this.

“But what we had to acknowledge also is a lot of positives and when we use the ball on our terms, when we used our skill set well, as we discussed earlier, we were hard to manage, so we’re really happy to leave Cordoba with a bonus point in what’s going to be in a really challenging competition.”

Starting halfback Cortez Ratima was substituted in the 49th minute for Finlay Christie, something that Hansen believes was a good move considering they were able to get Christie some important minutes.

“We had good momentum in that stage, and we felt getting Finlay on would give us what we needed; it also got to get him into our game.

“He’s got a great relationship with Beauden Barrett at 10, so we’re really confident with that decision, and Cortez gave us some good energy and play in our game, now he’s got some minutes in the All Black jersey.