Although Steve Hansen and his assistant Ian Foster looked understandably content with the All Blacks' first test victory, and are now roaring hot favourites to seal the deal next Saturday at the Westpac Stadium, their head coach understandably maintained that the series is still far from finished.
“The job isn’t done. It’s a three-match series. Winning one gives us an advantage. But so many times in sport, the winning team gets knocked over the next week. This team always works on the mantra we’ve got to get better. So that’s what we’ll try to do.
“They (the Lions) are a good team so if we don’t prepare properly we’ll come second. We’ve got to make sure we give ourselves every chance of winning in Wellington and that means leaving no stone unturned.”
The All Blacks appear to have the bigger scars physically, with Hansen confirming that fullback Ben Smith, who has had concussion issues this season, failed his HIA while Ryan Crotty suffered a hamstring injury and might recover for "the last Test if we're lucky".
They could move either Israel Dagg to fullback and dip into the world's richest conveyor belt of wingers (witness two tries by 20-year-old Reiko Ioane on his debut) or drop Beauden Barrett back there and start Aaron Cruden, which seems a less likely option.
Overall though, there was no masking Hansen's contentment, nor could he hide his admiration for Kieran Read, whose performance was all the more phenomenal for it being his first game since suffering a fractured thumb in early April. That said, Hansen's respect for the Lions' display was manifest and sincere.
“First off I thought the team executed the plan, very, very well. It wasn’t perfect but it is only our second Test of the year. We’ll build on that. The bloke to my left here was outstanding. He was a bit grumpy I didn’t take him off earlier, but it wasn’t a bad night’s work after seven weeks’ holiday.” That drew a wry smile from Read.
“Foz (Foster) and I have done a lot of work on what we wanted to do. We felt that we could hurt them if we could get in there, if we could take away their line speed that would let us play some rugby.
“To their credit I thought they were in the game,” Hansen said of the Lions. “It wasn’t easy. I thought the Lions played magnificently. When they can score tries like that first one, you’re thinking they should probably do that more often. That’s one of the best Test tries I’ve ever seen.”
Jamie George had revealed that the Lions' forwards coach had challenged them to be the best pack in the world, but they were eclipsed here.
“I thought our tight-five were very, very good,” said Hansen. “Ever since Adam was a cowboy, if the tight five do the job everyone else can play. Tonight’s Test was always going to be won in the tight five. We won that battle, but that doesn’t guarantee that will happen next week.
“We’ve got to be extremely proud of what they did. You don’t become the number one side in the world without having a quality tight five. I always find it amusing when people tell us they are going to beat us up in the tight five. We can play down and dirty rugby too if we have to.”
Realising his choice of words could be misinterpreted, he added: “I mean down and dirty in the most respectful way.”
All that said and done, Hansen declined to agree that the huge All Blacks scrum which led to Ioane’s first try, was the turning point of the match - even though it pushed the All Blacks 20-8 ahead.
“It was more our ability to play off nine and hurt them by getting in behind them and taking away what they wanted to do with us. Once we started to look after the ball, stopped trying to offload, we built the pressure, and time after time, that fatigues you, and fatigue makes you make mistakes.
“Obviously the scrum was the highlight, as was Rieko’s second try. There have been a lot of question-marks about the young fella. But not many people would have scored it, because the guys chasing him are very good players and very quick, but he just happened to be a bit quicker.”
Read himself maintained that the match hinged on key moments and that “it could have gone either way. When we got our chances in the second-half, we took them.”
In any event, naturally, he didn’t envisage his team being in any way complacent, or lacking motivation.
“I don’t think it will be too hard for us. We showed from our performance you can’t assume too many things. You get your result from the work you do throughout the week. We’ll turn out next week and be as excited, I’m sure. It’s another chance to play against the Lions, an awesome opportunity for us.
“It was a true Test out there. It probably took us to 60 minutes until we were finally able to string some opportunities (together) and finish them off. Both sides played some really intense rugby in the first-half.
“The Lions are a damn good team. It was good footy, it’s how you want to showcase this game. Test rugby takes a bit of time to work teams down. When you get your opportunities being able to take those, we finally got those later in the second-half.”
Aaron Smith was a pivotal figure for the All Blacks, not alone launching a succession of one-off runners at the Lions, but taking the quick tap which led to the first-half try by Codie Taylor. For Ioane's first try, he was the link from Read's wondrous scoop pass for Israel Dagg to step Jonathan Davies and feed Cruden.
“My role in this team is a lot different,” he explained”. “It’s get into the ruck and listen to the calls. With their defence we just had to earn the right and try and go through them. If they want to keep spreading out that is our options, but their rushed ‘D’ is something we must keep working on.”
Smith admitted it was not only a fast game compared to Super Rugby, but compared to most Test matches as well.
“It’s quite hard to remember what happened, it was such a fast game and such a high intensity and physicality that I’ll watch it and go, ‘oh did that happen?’ It’s going to be quite fun to see. You know it is a good game when you can’t remember everything and you also know it wasn’t perfect. It’s exciting to see what we can learn. There were some awesome moments in that game you can learn a lot from.
“With their rushed defence and their pressure from the outside, if they want to spread out we just try to go through them a bit more. You have got to be very abrasive and our ball carriers did well to do that. They were pretty brave going into their first couple of defenders off the ruck.
As for his quick penalty which led to the try by Taylor, Smith said: “It was just a simple numbers game mate. There was three of them and five of us. Let’s go. Steve always talks about ‘don’t play in your shell’. In Super Rugby I don’t mind the quick tap, but for me it’s more about if I feel they were under the pump a bit and it’s a way to execute more pressure.
“I don’t know if it was a statement tap, but it was ‘we can score here, let’s go’. Not go: ‘Oh it’s Test match rugby. Oh don’t do what you normally do’. Beauden was pretty adamant it was on and that gave me confidence to tap it so we went.”
Smith was also effusive in his praise for the Lions fans, and how they added to the occasion.
“When they got a couple of big tries, a couple of big breaks it felt like we were over in the UK. It was loud. The respect they showed during the Haka was brilliant. That little stuff like when there is a goal kick over in the UK and they go dead silent, I think it makes it more awkward for the kickers. It was pretty eerie during the Haka. It was full credit to their respect for it. That means a lot.”
