What Ian Foster told the All Blacks after being retained

All Black captain Sam Cane has revealed what head coach Ian Foster told the team after NZR confirmed he would be retained.

The message from the third-year head coach was essentially ‘get back to work’ after a turbulent month or so after the home series defeat to Ireland.

“Fozzie was just himself, pretty much,” Cane said.

“He came in on Sunday, addressed the team, we looked at a bit of a review and things we learned from that last South African game and we certainly take that on board and move forward.

“He addressed that it had been different, a challenging few weeks, but we’re where we are and let’s just get back to work really.

“It wasn’t anything special.”

The All Blacks came under heavy scrutiny after winning just one of their last six tests, with the outside noise reaching a peak after their first loss to South Africa.

However, the players were adamant that the team was improving with plenty of hard work going on behind the scenes.

Cane said that the team came together over their trip to South Africa and were brought together by the criticism they endured.

“I’d say so. It certainly helped,” Cane said when asked whether the pressure galvanised the team.

“I think maybe we took for granted going to South Africa twice a year for so many years so it was nice to get back and spend some time in South Africa and close time as a group.

“The facilities where we were at allowed us to spend a heck of a lot of time together and we put a heck of a lot of work in during that time and through that we saw some massive shifts.

“Our challenge is to continue making those shifts.”

The team put forward their best performance of the year at Ellis Park, reversing the result in Mbombela with a 35-23 win in Johannesburg.

The stunning turnaround kept the Freedom Cup in the trophy cabinet, which they have held since 2010, and injected hope into their Rugby Championship campaign.

The All Black captain said their approach doesn’t change ahead of two tests against table toppers Argentina, who are coming off a record win over Australia.

“I’m proud of how we stuck tight and focussed on what’s important and we just kept chipping away at our work,” he said.

“Nothing really changes; it’s nice to have some certainty going forward around coaching et cetera but in terms of our training week and what we want to achieve on the field, nothing changes.”

Test rugby returns to Christchurch for the first time since 2016 when the All Blacks played South Africa in a 41-13 win.

Los Pumas registered their first ever victory over the All Blacks in 2020 in Sydney, but would make more history if they were to win on New Zealand soil for the first time.

“It’s pretty exciting, to be fair, to be back in Christchurch after six years since we’ve had a Test match here, it’s been a long time,” Cane said.

“So to be playing an Argentina side that’s coming off a pretty impressive performance two weekends ago, we’re excited for this one.”