Coach Dave Rennie and skipper Patrick Tuipulotu were quick to credit the Stormers for testing the All Blacks in Friday’s Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry opening win for the All Blacks.
Six tries and a stirring second-half effort secured a 38-21 victory at Cape Town Stadium for the Kiwis, who now turn their attention to a trip to Durban to face the Sharks at Kings Park on Tuesday.
RECAP: All Blacks battle past Stormers
Rennie, speaking after the final whistle, praised his side’s resilience after an opening period that saw the All Blacks concede a string of penalties and two yellow cards.
“It’s a good introduction for us to South African rugby and a proud province. It felt like which side had the ball got rewarded by the referee,” he said.
“We gave away a number of scrum penalties and they were able to piggyback their way, and then a handful of more penalties and then obviously yellow cards.
“For us to give away as many penalties as we did … and go into half-time in front, highlights a lot of the character that the boys showed under a bit of pressure,” Rennie said.
He acknowledged the Stormers’ set-piece and aerial threats caused problems, even if the All Blacks found a way through in the end.
“We knew that they’d come at us with their set-piece, so we’ve got to be better in those areas. We expected a lot of aerial sort of attacks, and again, we probably didn’t deal with that as well as we wanted,” Rennie said.
“But just a heap of character and we’re very well conditioned, we felt if we could hang on to the ball, we could eventually find space and hurt them. And we were very clinical late in the game.”
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“When we were down to 13, we just went multi-phase in our own 22, but the thinking there is to try and shoot the clock,” he added. “There’s probably times in the second half where there wasn’t a lot on and we could have put some sort of contestable and put the pressure back on them. When we kicked later in the game, we got rewards.”
On the injury front, Rennie flagged a concern over outside centre Billy Proctor.
“He was trying to juggle for a ball and going to clean out. Looks like it may be a shoulder injury. I’m not sure yet. But yeah, there’s a few bumps and bruises.”
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Tuipulotu echoed his coach’s respect for the hosts, singling out their set-piece and defensive pressure.
“It’s good to come back and play against them. It’s been a while since we played them in Super Rugby, but tonight they showed the qualities of a good South African team.
“Certainly around their set-piece and around their defence, putting pressure on us and forcing a lot of errors, and especially around the discipline area.”
Photo: Roger Sedres/Gallo Images
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Coach Dave Rennie and skipper Patrick Tuipulotu were quick to credit the Stormers for testing the All Blacks in Friday’s Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry opening win for the All Blacks,
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