We were outsmarted

All Black centre Aaron Mauger talked about the mood in the All Black camp after the loss to Australia and the steps being taken by his team to ensure that they put things right against the Boks on Saturday.

“We are very disappointed with our performance in the Australia game. I think they outsmarted us a little bit.

“We are spending time revisiting our own game, getting a few fundamentals right, getting everyone on the same page, eliminating confusion.
 
“The thrust of it is that in our matches against the Springboks and the Wallabies we did not dictate play the way we would have liked to.

“We needed to revisit a few things, a few fundamentals about the way we play. We went over aspects of the game plan again and re-affirmed what we are trying to achieve on the field. It was about making sure everybody is on the same page.

“We are seeing this game as part of the World Cup, as part of the nine games hopefully remaining for us for the year.

“We regard these final Tri- Nations games as stepping stones towards the pool games in France, and as valuable opportunities to build up confidence.

“The quality of our performance is paramount. There has been a lot of criticism of us after we lost in Melbourne, but the harshest critics are, in fact, ourselves. There is no hiding from the fact that we did not play our best rugby, without taking anything away from the Aussies.

“There is no need to panic, but there are things that we want to address and get right this week. We have not really been happy with our performances all year. We have been operating at about 80%, and I suppose the positive is that we can get a whole lot better.

“We have been a bit disjointed. Some guys played a lot of rugby during the Super 14, some did not play a whole lot. And when we got together for the international season we probably tried to force things too much in a bid to get to where we were last year.

“After the Aussies, but also after the Durban win, we spoke about the need to up the standard, and the loss in Melbourne really hit home.

“There were a few things that needed to be pointed out. Hopefully we are now on the right track going forward. It has just been an attitudinal thing, we have been guilty of going into our shells when put under pressure in Durban and Melbourne. We have done our soul searching.

“We would hope our attitude is right for this weekend.”