Down 17-0 after quarter of an hour and again behind with three minutes left to play, the All Blacks found a way to come back and win.
A nice try set up by a strong run from skipper Kieran Read gave the All Blacks the 35-29 lead with two minutes to go and the home side held the ball from the kick-off to win the game.
All Black hooker Dane Coles said it was a funny game to play in.
‘‘They came out with a real intent and caught us out. We had to look really hard [at ourselves] and they put us under pressure for a lot of that match,’’ Coles said.
‘‘There was calmness but our skill execution at times was poor. We dropped a lot of ball and we had scrum domination but the next thing we would find ourselves underneath our own posts.
‘‘But we never gave up. We just needed to keep things simple. That first 20 minutes we just could not control our ball, our skills let us down.’’
The Wallabies scored after 27 seconds when fullback Israel Folau bagged an intercept pass thrown by Damian McKenzie.
That was followed by flanker Michael Hooper shrugging off a Read tackle to scamper over from a lineout maul and then Bernard Foley finished off a run from halfback Will Genia while the Wallabies scrum was in reverse gear.
But the All Blacks did not panic and went in at halftime 17-14 down, Aaron Smith scoring a try right before the break, a crucial score.
‘‘We were trying to get ourselves back into the game and having a few goes at the line and that really helped.
‘‘He [Hansen] was really calm at halftime. Probably scoring that try just before halftime gave us a little bit of momentum and confidence.’’
The game ebbed and flowed in the second half and Kurtley Beale put the Wallabies in front with under five minutes to go when he spied a gap in the home team’s defence and scored under the bar.
The Wallabies needed to control the resulting kick-off but could not and Barrett ended up winning the game.
Best for the All Blacks were Barrett, Read and lock Brodie Retallick.
For the Wallabies, Folau got heavily involved while No 8 Sean McMahon and lock Rory Arnold ran themselves to a standstill.
●South Africa scored five tries to thump Argentina 41-23 in the Rugby Championship in Salta, Argentina, yesterday, punishing the indiscipline which cost the Pumas a red card for lock Tomas Lavanini.
South Africa 41 (penalty try, Siya Kolisi 2, Jean-Luc du Preez, Elton Jantjies tries; Jantjies 4 con, 2 pen), Argentina 23 (Matias Moroni, Ramiro Moyano Joya tries; Juan Martin Hernandez, Nicolas Sanchez con, Emiliano Boffelli 2, Hernandez pen). Halftime: 10-17.
