Late flourish not enough for All Blacks

By DUNCAN JOHNSTONE - Stuff.co.nz


The All Blacks were gracious in defeat as they handed the Tri-Nations trophy over to South Africa last night with coach Graham Henry only lamenting a poor opening hour's work that cost his side the Hamilton test and any chance of staying in the title race.

The All Blacks came back strongly but ended up short, losing 29-32 for their third loss of the tournament. That left Henry offering no excuses.

"Congratulations to South Africa. I think they richly deserve to win the Tri-Nations, they have beaten the All Blacks three times ... that's pretty convincing.

"They played structured rugby. We played well for the last 20 minutes and didn't play well the first 60, that's the basic reason we lost the game."

Late tries to Sitiveni Sivivatu and Richie McCaw raised hopes of a win that would have kept the tournament alive.

But in the end there could be little argument with South Africa's stature as the best side in this championship.

The All Blacks play the Wallabies in Wellington next Saturday to wrap up the tournament.

There is nothing but pride to play for now and clearly the Boks dented the All Blacks with this win in New Zealand.

The All Blacks lineout fell apart from the outset and by the time it recovered late in the match it was too late.

"When the game looked lost we could have pulled it out of the fire. But we lacked that consistency. We turned over too much ball, there wasn't the structure in the set pieces," said Henry.

"We started to get that consistency, the lineout got better, we held on to ball and we looked a good side. We got a wee bit more adventurous as the game went on too."

Of the lineout woes specifically, Henry said: "I guess that's confidence. We didn't hit the jumpers early and that confidence waned."

Henry and backs coach Wayne Smith admitted the controversial move to play Dan Carter and Stephen Donald together had failed.

"I don't think it was as good as we hoped," said an honest Henry.

"We thought it was the right selection. But I though Daniel lacked a wee bit in giving the side direction when both were on the field."

He felt things had improved when Donald was subbed in the 50th minute, allowing Carter to concentrate on his No 10 duties after the pair had swapped positions regularly.

Added Smith: "I feel a bit sorry for Stephen because there weren't a lot of opportunities in that first half. It was a scrambling game and not how we wanted to play."

Henry said there were some simple lessons to be learnt from this campaign.

"You need quality first phase ball so that you have a foundation to work from and getting over the advantage line.

"I think it's a basic game --- get go forward ball and when you achieve those things then you are looking likely. We did that but it was too late in the game."