Sept 29 (Askume) – All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson said he was pleased with his side’s performance in the Rugby Championship even though New Zealand missed out on a record 21st southern hemisphere title but finished second.
A 33-13 win over Australia in Wellington on Saturday and South Africa’s 48-7 victory over Argentina gave the All Blacks a chance of finishing second, Robertson’s first in charge since replacing Ian Foster following last year’s World Cup.
“I’m happy in many ways, we’ve had a good three or four weeks of training and happy that we performed well on the field, but there’s still a lot of work to do,” Robertson said after the game. There are many other things.
“We could have won every game. In those games, there are times when the momentum changes a lot, the referee’s decision or your own decision or game management, there are certain key moments that you have to understand, otherwise the momentum changes a lot.” place.
“We have spent a lot of time on our discipline and we have to get better in this area.
“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves and we had to figure it out, especially when we moved up north, but we’re very happy with it and very proud of it.
“The main thing is that the young players who have come in and the players who have played two, three, four, five Test matches before are adapting to Test level very quickly. Overall, I am happy.”
The win in Wellington was New Zealand’s last home Test of the season and Robertson will now take his team to the Northern Hemisphere where they will play five Tests in a month at the end of the year.
The All Blacks will face Japan on October 25 before heading west for a series of games against England, Ireland, France and Italy in November.
The busy schedule means Robertson is considering major changes to his squad even before meeting Eddie Jones’ Japanese team in Yokohama.
“We are in a testing phase, so we have to take care of the players’ minutes and give them opportunities,” he said.
“Japan will be balanced and have some different names on the roster.”
