The All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has revealed the side's master plan for the World Cup and there is no need to panic.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen Photo: PhotoSport
The New Zealanders were criticised for their underwhelming performance in beating Georgia 43-10 in Cardiff on Saturday, with the side making numerous mistakes and conceding turnovers.
Hansen has now revealed they are holding back on some of their tactics and moves until the quarter-finals.
"We're working incredibly hard behind the scenes," said Hansen.
"We have three aims. One is to qualify, two is to be the number one qualifier and three to build parts of our game that we know we're going to need later in the competition.
"That has been to the detriment of some of the other aspects of their game, but there were also some very good things done against Georgia."
"Our defence was superb, we missed just four tackles and the set piece is going well," Hansen said.
"As we get closer to the sudden death games, we'll bring our whole game, if we brought our whole game straight away everybody gets to see what we've got and it hasn't worked for us in the past, so we're trying a different tact."
"We know we have to get better bit we've got a plan and we're comfortable with that plan," said Hansen.
"If you look at how often we didn't kick the ball, then its not normal, but it put us under pressure and we have to learn to deal with that pressure because we're going to get pressure in the quarter-finals and if we don't deal with it then then we go home."
"Everyone has told us that we have this weak pool so how do we manufacture something that allows us to practice stuff we're going to get later on, we don't need to panic."
Hansen appreciated that the players and fans were probably frustrated after yesterday's game.
"Everyone will be frustrated because the job wasn't well done, there were times where we really felt the pressure, there were times when we couldn't get the ball away but at this point of the competition we just have to make sure that the frustration doesn't knock our confidence and believe in what they're doing."
Some commentators were also critical of first five Dan Carter's performance, but Hansen said Carter's performance was good.
"I thought Dan's performance was pretty good, we didn't want to kick the ball or have shots at goal," he said.
"The easiest thing to do was to kick it, but was that going to help us in the future, no, beating them by another 20 points does nothing for us at quarter final time.
"People said why did we take Conrad Smith off, there was nothing wrong with him but what happens if we get to a tight game and we lose a couple of backs and we have to use someone like Victor, we've never done it before, so there are things like that that you put into these games to get something out of it."
"I can tell everyone wants us to win by 80 or 90, but that does nothing for us, we're in this competition to get something out of it, not to get a pat on the back for beating Georgia by big scores."
The All Blacks head to Newcastle now to take on Tonga in their last pool match next weekend.