mens
international
All black people Head coach Dave Rennie remained coy about the performance of returning first five Richie Mo’ung after the 35-28 defeat Wales for the first time in 73 years.
The historic night in Cardiff featured a slow start to both halves, with the All Blacks trailing 14-0 early in the first half and conceding 14 points again to start the second.
All Blacks playmakers Richie Mo’unga and Beauden Barrett finished with five combined turnovers, with Mo’unga topping the list with three.
“I’ll take a good look at him,” Rennie said when asked to weigh in on Mo’unga’s return.
“We are under a lot of pressure. He was forced to run quite a bit. Today is a difficult day for many people.”
Mo’unga played just his second Test since returning to the All Blacks during the tour South Africa after completing his time in Japan.
After the fourth Test against Baltimore where he started, the number 10 suffered a calf injury in training and has been sidelined for the past two months.
His return against Wales came as part of 10 changes to the winning starting line-up Scotland last week at Murrayfield.
Despite this, Rennie believed they had enough talent on the pitch to overcome Wales, as evidenced by falling behind three times in the second half as they sought an equaliser.
“We had a good enough team on the field tonight to win, and if you look at the stats, I think we had a lot of opportunities,” Rennie said.
“So those guys created a lot of chances. We just weren’t clinical enough and they were very good defensively.”
“So, no, I have no regrets about the side we picked. As I said before, there’s really good competition for places.
“There’s not a lot between certain positions and the expectation is whoever wears the shirt. Like I said before, when you’re not in the game, it’s not just about the players. We’ll look at everything we do.”