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'Smacked us on the face': Beauden Barrett on the All Blacks loss and Wellington hoodoo
By Ben Smith
All Blacks fullback Beauden Barrett has offered his assessment on the 38-30 loss to Argentina that extended the All Blacks disappointing run at Sky Stadium in Wellington.
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Los Pumas registered their highest ever score against the All Blacks for their third ever win, and second on New Zealand soil, to hand Scott Robertson his first loss as coach of the All Blacks.
Beauden Barrett highlighted the kicking game as a problem area as the team struggled to exit well and clear the lines.
“I think in our own half, we weren’t clinical at all. It was disappointing. We struggled to clear our 22 kickoff receipts. You know, we just struggled to to apply pressure from those,” Barrett said.
“So that’ll be a focal point, no doubt, going into next week. And obviously, discipline, we can’t afford to give away as many penalties to any team. So, yeah, super frustrating and disappointing at the same time.
“We expected a stop, start test. We focused and knew that we had to be squeaky clean around discipline, so everything we spoke about, yeah, probably smacked us on the face at times. We didn’t deal with it as well as we would have liked to.”
As a long-time Hurricane from 2011-2019, Barrett is very familiar with Sky Stadium having won plenty of games over his career including a Super Rugby title.
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But the ground has not been happy hunting ground for the All Blacks who have developed a hoodoo at the stadium, last winning there in 2018 over France.
They have lost or drawn eight fixtures over the six years since.
On Wellington hoodoo, Barrett called it an “inconvenient fact” but said there is another game this year against the Wallabies.
“It’s an inconvenient fact. We get an opportunity again this year here, so we’ll look to turn that around,” Barrett said.
On what the Pumas did really well, Barrett said that the All Blacks were thrown off their own game too much.
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He said it was “as simple” as being better at their own game in order to turn things around.
“They’re a physical team, and if they manage to play the clock and force penalties, put pressure on at set piece, it turns into a real arm wrestle,” he said.
“They kick their goals, and all of a sudden you’ve got a tough, tough night at the office.
“They’re on emotional side, if that’s fed, they’re always tough. So we’ve just got to be better on our own game. It’s as simple as that. We’ll look at ourselves hard in the mirror, and next week’s another opportunity. So if it really hurts, it’ll hurt for a while.”
