All Blacks head coach Ian Foster explains his 'best performance' post-match comments

All Blacks head coach Ian Foster has explained his extremely upbeat post-match comments around the 26-10 loss to the Springboks.

After the game, Foster told Sky Sport’s NZ on the pitch side that the loss in ‘many ways’ was “probably our best performance of the year”.

Defending his post-match sentiment, Foster highlighted the areas where he saw a big lift in the team’s play including on the defensive side of the ball and at lineout time.

“Certainly I thought our defence, we were a lot sturdier in that space,” Foster explained to media on Sunday.

“We defended well in the outside channels after really negating their big carriers close in so I was pleased with that. Whereas against Ireland we conceded a couple in that area.

“Our lineout work, we pressured theirs but also our lineout maul defence which was a big work-on for us. I thought there was a big shift in that space.

“Also a lot of our movements off-the-ball, I think we had a lot more certainty about what we were doing.

“I felt that those were the areas that we targetted and we did get a big movement in them but it wasn’t good enough.

“For all that good stuff, the team is still trying to find its feet. We are trying to get out of this three defeats. We are trying a little bit too hard and the errors are in big moments.”

The All Blacks’ only try of the match came with five minutes remaining when Caleb Clarke burst up the middle for a long range break. Reserve flanker Shannon Frizell dived over on the next phase to prevent the All Blacks going try-less.

When pressed about whether they have solutions for the Springboks’ rush defence on the back of a challenging time against Ireland, Foster explained that the two defences are different and that he believed that there were opportunities for the taking in Mbombela that the All Blacks just didn’t execute on.

“They are different,” Foster said of the Springboks’ defence, “They are a very different beast.

“If you look at some of the moments where it looked like they won defensively, there were opportunities around that.

“That’s the stuff we are slowly getting used to. We know from all the years playing South Africa, you are always going to have big pressure points with the way they defend.

“No, we didn’t quite get it right on Saturday but the pleasing thing was that there was certainly enough there for us to be interested.”

Elaborating on catch-pass skills under pressure, the All Blacks head coach said that his side’s missed the ‘last pass’ where they actually had the Springboks beaten.

“It’s just that last pass when you’ve actually got them,” Foster said.

“They’ve thrown everything at that last situation to try and deal with it late and if you exercise that skill set then you have got a lot of space in front of you.

“If you don’t [execute], then you are in trouble.”

Despite not having South Africa involved in Super Rugby anymore, Foster wouldn’t say it was having a ripple effect with the All Blacks.

He did say he would prefer that they were involved but that he doubted that was a possibility at this stage.

“It is a question that has so many answers,” Foster said.

“From a high performance side, I’d love to be playing them more often. We’ve had a gap where we haven’t played them for awhile, we had two last year internationally.

“Certainly I think we’ve always benefitted in the past playing regularly against their Super teams.

“Can’t see it happening, which is sad.”