‘We still believe’: All Blacks remain ‘confident’ despite Springboks ‘spanking’

In the early hours of Saturday morning, the sun defiantly rose over London in the wake of the All Blacks‘ disastrous loss to the Springboks at Twickenham.

The nightmare from the night before was real, and the reality of the painful defeat continued to sink in for the All Blacks and their supporters as they began another day.

For All Blacks fans, it had felt like the world was coming to an end as the Boks ran away with a staggering 35-7 defeat at the home of English rugby.

More than 80,000 passionate fans watched on as the All Blacks fell to a troubling defeat mere weeks out from the World Cup. The Springboks, meanwhile, made a statement.

“It was, in many ways, a perfect storm. We probably had seven players who haven’t played a game of rugby in four weeks and they needed this game,” coach Ian Foster told reporters on Saturday.

“Our mindset was to go in really hard at it. I thought we looked rusty and quite frankly I thought South Africa was outstanding with how they pressured us in the areas that they wanted to pressure us.

“They coincided with a red card and there goes the game. It was still a game that we needed and we’ll make sure that we use that really, really well in a fortnight’s time.”

Playmaker Beauden Barrett kicked off proceedings at Twickenham last night, and the vibrant crowd – most of them were Springboks fans, it seemed – let out a cheer.

Another chapter in the history books of his famous rivalry was set to be written, and Twickenham was the stage. Outside of a Rugby World Cup, it doesn’t get much bigger.

The Boks took control of the territory and possession battles early on, and had plenty of opportunities to open the scoring during the first 15 minutes.

But the All Blacks held firm. The wall of black jerseys stood strong as they continued to survive – but they were hanging on, and only just.

Scott Barrett and captain Sam Cane were sent to the sin bin, and the South Africans eventually made the most of it.

Captain Siya Kolisi opened the scoring midway through the first term, and wing Kurt-Lee Arendse added another try to the Springboks’ tally shortly after. The All Blacks were stunned.

But a red card to Scott Barrett – which, it’s worth noting, was the result of two yellow cards – somewhat ended the All Blacks’ hopes of a comeback before the break.

The Springboks ran away with it in the second half, with a late try to Cam Roigard a minor glimmer of hope on an otherwise bleak night at Twickenham.

“(Discipline is) probably the one thing that bugs us because I think we’ve been making some big strides in that,” Foster added.

“Disciplines covers a whole lot of things, doesn’t it? It covers how you deal with a refs decision that you don’t quite agree with, how you respond to that.

“I thought some of the discipline issues early were over-eager and probably trying too hard. We can get a bit more clinical on that.

‘They key discipline areas that you’ve really got to look at is in that first 15 minutes we absorbed so much pressure… it’s actually just how we execute because if we’d been able to counterpunch at that point I think it might’ve been a different game.

“But big games, you have a few big moments and you’ve got to get good at them.”

The All Blacks take on Rugby World Cup hosts, and arguably the tournament favourites, France in a couple of weeks in Paris.

New Zealand were among the favourites to hoist the Webb Ellis Cup before playing South Africa, but that might change after the painful defeat.

But count out the All Blacks if you must – Ian Foster isn’t panicking, though, and neither are the players.

“We’re confident and it didn’t look like that and I know we got a good spanking yesterday so I’m not hiding from that fact.

“If you go through Tyrell, Ethan, Scott Barrett, you go through the likes of Jordie, Rieko, Beaudy, they haven’t played since the MCG and there’s not much we can do about that.

“We’re not panicking about that result last night. We knew we were going to get challenged, it’s not the result we wanted, but we still believe in the plan. I still believe we’ve got the group that needed to play.

“What we have got now is we’ve got a good litmus test of where we’re at.”