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'Today is like winning the Lotto' - Steve Hansen highlights positives in rusty All Blacks win over Argentina

The Pumas win a lineout against the All Blacks in their Rugby Championship clash at Buenos Aires. (Photo by Amilcar Orfali/Getty Images)

By Christopher Reive, NZ Herald

It wasn’t pretty, but the All Blacks got the win against Argentina in Buenos Aires. Now, it’s time to move ahead.

Missing a host of their usual starters, there were questions over how the New Zealand side would front against an Argentinean team in which 20 of 23 played alongside each other for the Jaguares. Those questions were answered with a far from perfect, but victorious performance.

The All Blacks were missing all of their Crusaders players, apart from debutants Sevu Reece, who started on the right wing, and replacement back Braydon Ennor, and that lack of quality and experience showed in the second half as the visitors were held scoreless.

But All Blacks coach Steve Hansen found many positives from the match, including the tense test-match experience gained by the rookies.

“When you take all the leadership we’ve taken out with all the Crusaders not here…to have the opportunity for this group to go through with what they went through today is like winning the Lotto,” said Hansen.

“Our accuracy and combinations weren’t there but they stayed in the moment and trusted themselves. We left four or five (tries) out there. We’ve learnt a lot about a lot of people this week…both new and old.”

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Hansen said the All Blacks got “exactly what they expected” in the 20-16 win.

“You can’t just snap your fingers and get the end result just like that,” Hansen said. “It takes time and timing and time together. It’s the same with defence, we tweaked a few things there and once you go past that, what you want from them is them to be able to show you that they can get out there in the heat of the battle and do that job that you ask them to do.”

First-half tries to Ngani Laumape and Brodie Retallick, along with a flawless kicking performance from Beauden Barrett gave the All Blacks a 20-6 lead at half time, but the side was held scoreless in the second period as their attack staggered.

The All Blacks were loose at times with their handling and concession of silly penalties, and it almost cost them at the end as the Pumas had the ball inside the All Blacks’ 22 when the final hooter sounded, but were not able to capitalise.

It was arguably the best chance the Pumas had ever had to score an upset over the All Blacks, but instead remain without a win over the Kiwi side in their 29-match history.

“You leave eight or nine of your top line players out, your second group comes together and plays for the first time in 4, 5, maybe 6 weeks, had a couple of weeks to try get ready for the test match – so at times we were a bit rusty,” Hansen said. “But we did a lot of good things and I thought one of the greatest things we did was at the end with all the young fellas on, we showed a lot of mental fortitude so I was really pleased with that.”

The side now turns their attention to a date with South Africa in Wellington next weekend, which could see the coaches play the strategy game in their team selection, with the two meeting in the opening game of the rugby World Cup later this year.

South Africa started their Rugby Championship campaign with a dominant 35-17 win against Australia in Johannesburg.

This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and was republished with permission.

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Tom 7 hours ago
Will Bristol's daredevil 'Bears-ball' deliver the trophy they crave?

Also a Bristol fan and echo your sentiments.


I love watching Bristol but their approach will only get them so far I think. Exeter played like this when they first got promoted to the prem and had intermittent success, it wasn't until they wised up and played a more balanced game that they became a consistently top side.


I really want Bristol to continue playing this brand of rugby and I don't mind them running it from under their posts but I don't think they need to do it every single time. They need to be just a little bit more selective about when and where on the pitch they play. Every game they put themselves under so much needless pressure by turning the ball over under their posts trying to do kamikaze moves when it's not required. By all means run it from your goal line if there is a chance for a counter attack, we all want to see Bristol running in 100m tries from under their posts but I think until they learn when to do it and when to be pragmatic, they are unlikely to win the premiership.


Defense has been a real positive from Bristol, they've shown a lot of improvement there... And I will say that I think this kamikaze strategy they employ is a very good one for a struggling side and could be employed by Newcastle. It's seems to have turned around Gloucester's fortunes. The big advantage is even if you don't have the biggest and best players, what you have is cohesion. This is why Scotland keep battering England. England have better individuals but they look muddled as a team, trying to play a mixed strategy under coaches who lack charisma, the team has no identity. Scotland come out and give it full throttle from 1-15 even if they struggle against the top sides, sides like England and Wales who lack that identity drown under the relentless will and synergy of the Scots. If Newcastle did the same they could really surprise some people, I know the weather is bad up there but it hasn't bothered the Scots. Bristol can learn from Scotland too, Pat is on to something when he says the following but Scotland don't play test matches like headless chickens. They still play with the same level of clarity and ambition Bristol do but they are much better at picking their moments. They needed to go back to this mad game to get their cohesion back after a couple of seasons struggling but I hope they get a bit wiser from matches like Leinster and La Rochelle.


“If there’s clarity on what you’re trying to do as a team you can win anything.”

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