\u201cKeep bringing the pressure. As a player, you thrive on that and it makes you want to do better. It gets the knots in the gut and makes me want to perform. That\u2019s what the people of this nation deserve and that\u2019s what we\u2019re expected to do as All Blacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ardie Savea celebrates his 100th test with his family at Eden Park. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
Robertson has witnessed four defeats in his 20 games as All Blacks coach. The backdrop to this test, though, is comparable to no other.<\/p>\n
With Sir Wayne Smith in camp, Sir Graham Henry stopping in and Sir Michael Jones among those to share the significance of Eden Park\u2019s now 51-match unbeaten status, there was no escaping the magnitude of this occasion \u2013 particularly after a humbling first defeat in Argentina.<\/p>\n
With a week to recover and improve before the rematch with the Boks in Wellington, the All Blacks will now be tasked with grasping that same level of focus and intent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the challenge of it all. You only learn through experience,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cWe can do all the mental skill work during the week and our preparation and huddles but when you\u2019re out there then you put it into action. Scooter [captain Scott Barrett] and the leadership group were immense this week. They did a great job to own key parts to help us be better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were locked in. We didn\u2019t want to waste the lesson from Argentina. Our performance hurt us. Our care wasn\u2019t high enough. Our preparation wasn\u2019t good enough so this week was where it needed to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you play a World Cup-winning team that\u2019s very experienced, you\u2019re never going to win every moment and you\u2019ve got to stay in the fight. It turned into a scrap but we kept competing and won the ones that mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n
In wet, greasy conditions, this match was never going to be pretty. A brutal dogfight, punctuated by box-kicking, ensued.<\/p>\n
The All Blacks largely defused the high-ball bombardment and their forwards met the South Africans head-on but they didn\u2019t have it all their own way, with the Springboks pulling off one huge tighthead scrum shunt that turned the contest on its head.<\/p>\n
While the All Blacks backs scored three tries, with Will Jordan, Quinn Tupaea and Emoni Narawa crossing, defence was the backbone of their breakthrough success.<\/p>\n
Rieko Ioane pulled off a try-saving tackle by holding up hulking Springboks prop Ox Nche and Savea, who switched between No 7 and eight, stepped up with a typically talismanic breakdown penalty on his line with two minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
Captain Scott Barrett and Tupou Vaa\u2019i also led the charge, pressuring Springboks halfback Grant Williams into an erratic performance.<\/p>\n
Defence is defined by attitude. It\u2019s that element the All Blacks must seek to replicate after their dispiriting 1-1 tour to Argentina.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe turned up on Monday with a real attitude to defend our home territory and you can see that in the way the guys fronted tonight,\u201d Barrett said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of the way the guys fronted for Ardie. He\u2019s a spiritual leader in our team so we wanted to make that special.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the back of Argentina and a week at home, there was a lot of self-reflection individually on how we can get better. We fronted up from day one when we rejoined in Auckland and the performance reflected that. We need to go again next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liam Napier<\/a> is a Senior Sports Journalist and Rugby Correspondent for the New Zealand Herald. He is a co-host of the Rugby Direct podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cKeep bringing the pressure. As a player, you thrive on that and it makes you want to do…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9092,5263,534,9082,4057,8136,9085,9084,8142,9094,9093,9089,5829,9088,9086,9097,111,43,139,69,8143,9099,9090,9098,8140,9096,9083,8139,9095,6102,8137,9100,1961,61,9091,9087],"class_list":["post-7065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-against","tag-all","tag-amid","tag-ardie","tag-behind","tag-blacks","tag-bottle","tag-challenges","tag-eden","tag-elusive","tag-lies","tag-maintained","tag-many","tag-milestones","tag-mindset","tag-must","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-park","tag-performances","tag-records","tag-replicate","tag-robertsons","tag-sauce","tag-savea","tag-scott","tag-secret","tag-side","tag-springboks","tag-such","tag-this","tag-to","tag-treasured","tag-triumph"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}