A scratchy series win over France has given the All Blacks plenty to think about, especially the all-important breakdown area.
A 14-man French side out-muscled the hosts at the tackle-ball during their 26-13 loss in Wellington on Saturday night, and flanker Sam Cane is well aware of his pack’s recent deficiencies with securing and recycling quality possession.
Cane confirmed it was a hot topic of conversation in the team’s match-review meeting.
"I thought they contested harder at the breakdown and sometimes got results there, because they were quicker to react and anticipate than we were," he told media. "We turned up and we got beaten to the punch from the outset.
"We looked at some clips where our reactions were too slow, and they’ve got on the ball and got in good positions."
The Chiefs captain indicated the solutions lay in getting the fundamentals correct, which includes the player with the ball in hand making smarter decisions.
"If we can get better go-forward on some of our carries so we carry into space a little bit more, rather than where their defenders are, that makes the clean-out a lot easier.
“We had to work hard for a long period of the game and we got the reward at the end, because we focused on the process throughout that test.
As was the case in the first test in Auckland, the Wellington contest iwas turned on its head (no pun intended) by contentious refereeing.
On this occasion, it was a red card for what was deemed a dangerous challenge on an aerial ball by France's Benjamin Fall, which forced Beauden Barrett out of the game with concussion.
World Rugby has since cleared Fall of any wrong-doing, and cancelled the card from his record on the grounds that he always had his eyes on the ball and had his line impeded by a collision with All Blacks centre Anton Lienert-Brown.
Plenty's been said of Angus Gardner's decision to flash the red and while Ben Smith sympathised with the severity of the call, given what appeared to be Ball's fair intentions, he believed the Australian referee simply did what the rules dictated.
"[Gardner] just ruled to the letter of the law, so that was the right call," said Smith.
"It's such a hard area to get right as players, because if your timing is out a bit, you can affect that guy in the air."
Smith admitted there was still considerable grey surrounding that area of the game, where the balancing act involved in such a split-second decision could have dire consequences.
During the first test, the All Blacks winger withdrew from a high-ball contest when he sensed he was not in the dominant position to win it.
"It's justified that it probably needs a bit of a look at to make sure that it doesn’t affect a game of footy,” Smith noted. “It can't afford to affect a whole game when it's such a small margin.
"If you think you can get up, then get up. But if your timing's not quite right or you're not there quick enough, you’ve just got to let that guy contest, then make a good decision from that.
"If you're in an area where you can't contest or you're going to affect that guy, you’ve got to make sure you get out of the area, but then you still want to be in a position where you can tackle him, so the team can contest the breakdown from there.
"As players we just have to make really good decisions."
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