mens
international
All black people Captain Beauden Barrett reacted to his side’s drought defeat Wales in Cardiff after the team could not convert numerous chances in the last half hour to at least tie the game.
The stand-in captain could join a very short list of losing All Blacks captains after a superb Welsh performance ended 73 years of misery with an emphatic victory.
Barrett branded the result “tough to take” after chances of an equalizer went in last-ditch efforts to hold off the All Blacks.
The visitors lost a number of open support runners by hitting the gaps, instead opting for crash and bash rugby which failed to deliver.
“It’s hard one that that take, in particular when we were building a a lot of pressure and we only he couldn’t to convert that into points,” Barrett told the media after the match.
“A lot times we were held up and only felt like we needed one of those that get back right back in the the game and level the traffic light, and the whole the game would to have changed. therefore, yes, frustrating.”
Barrett credited the Wales defense as a “brick wall” with the team making over 300 tackles and many of their forwards registering over 30.
The noise of the Welsh support felt like the home side had extra players on the pitch.
“That felt like a brick the wall at times. So you to have that to give to them credit. You to give to them possibilities for the the crowd that come into the the game.
“We are good aware of that when we come here. That’s it why it is one of the the best places that to play rugby when you had that support behind you. That feels like you are playing 16 or 17.”
Barrett’s message to the team as captain was to find the obvious play and continue to work from the recovery from the first half.
After a slow start, the All Blacks found it “reasonably easy” to score from their own 22, crossing the Welsh line three times to level the scores at 21 at half-time.
“That was only finding that relationship, is coming up with solutions, will be really assertive around what those are. That was Fr doing the obviously,” Barrett said.
“We are a a little bit undecided or undecided in our own half, which allowed to them that result, you know, easy is trying in that first half, and we found in that first half when we Got down below there, that was reasonable directly.
“But that it is not happen in the second half. yes, like I say, three held oops. We are Got that to be better at pretending those.”