The Pumas simply hung in there long enough to watch the All Blacks implode

I’m not sure that infantilizing All Blacks is actually going to help them.

Listening to assistant coach Scott Hansen talk on Monday, you could be forgiven for thinking New Zealand sent a bunch of boys out on a man’s errand, against Argentina in Wellington.

To paraphrase Hansen, the players didn’t know how to get out of their own half, were unsure in their overall option taking and unprepared for executing their skills under pressure.

Throwing appears as if it might be an impediment to Asafo Aumua’s progress as a test footballer, otherwise I absolve the forward pack from any observations made by Hansen.

Frankly, if you were a forward in that team, you’d be furious with the fellas behind you.

Fellas who, need anyone be reminded, are far from boys being given their first taste of test rugby.

Beauden Barrett has played, according to his All Blacks bio, 127 tests. TJ Perenara 82, Anton Lienert-Brown 74, Jordie Barrett 61, Damian McKenzie 51.

Cortez Ratima is a rookie, but the other backline subs used on Saturday – Rieko Ioane and Will Jordan – definitely are not.

So we’re saying that this far into careers, in which losing Test matches has become an all too regular occurrence, that these guys have learned nothing from that?

That from 20-8 up over Argentina, they were unaccustomed to the task of closing the Test match out?

The Pumas, who try very hard but otherwise haven’t got a lot to offer, didn’t unleash an onslaught of champagne rugby en route to an eventual 38-30 victory. They simply hung in there long enough to watch the All Blacks implode.

After the match, head coach Scott Robertson spoke glowingly of some of the brilliant rugby the All Blacks played and expressed confidence that the game management required to be a reputable Test match side would develop over time.

I’m afraid Robertson isn’t coaching the New Zealand under-20 team anymore and that we’re not dealing with a small sample size of performances among the backline he selected last Saturday.

At some point you have to accept certain players aren’t capable of managing a game in an accurate fashion. That for all the eye-catching things they do, there are too many others that have fans hiding their face behind a cushion.

If you’re confident the good will outweigh the bad more often than not, then I guess you might stick with what you’ve got. If not, then you pick players who won’t let you down when it matters.

But who? Richie Mo’unga isn’t here. Harry Plummer is around the squad, but appears to have been damned for an inability to score length-of-the-field tries..

Honestly, though, who else is there that could do the job this team needs? Where are the players who can actually manage a game?

So, I partly get why Hansen publicly put his arm around Saturday’s team and why he suggested it’s the coaching staff’s job to prepare the players better.

But, at some point, we have to accept – as perhaps Hansen and company are – that this is all they have to work with and that they’ll have to try and make the best of it.

I’d prefer to hear the coaches say Saturday’s performance wasn’t good enough and that they were largely awful against England too. In the long run, I don’t think protecting players from the truth helps them all that much.

My experience of covering this team was that coaches weren’t hard on players behind closed doors either. They preferred to have journalists write the unkind things for fear of saying anything that would hurt their relationship with a player.

I found that sad, but was told it was the reality of coaching the modern athlete.

This All Blacks team will have its days when everything comes up trumps. That day could come as soon as Saturday, in large part because I doubt Argentina can rise to the challenge once again.

But these All Blacks, as they have on a semi-consistent basis for six or seven years now, will also have those days when they can’t stop making errors, can’t get out of their own half and can’t do any of the simple things well.

But just don’t tell me it’s because they haven’t been taught how.