All Blacks 34 -Wales 16 in McCaws 100th game as captain

A roaring haka echoed through the hallways around Millennium Stadium following the All Blacks 34-16 win over Wales this morning.

It was performed in the All Blacks changing rooms to honour the record breaking feats of captain Richie McCaw and veteran hooker Keven Mealamu.

McCaw led his country in a test for the 100th time, while Mealamu became New Zealand’s most capped first class player passing Colin Meads’ mark of 361 matches when he came off the bench with 15 minutes to play

With the season over, the players could for once reflect on a job”I’m pretty satisfied. It’s one of the great places to play and it was like that today,” McCaw said after a grandstand finish silenced the vocal 72,000 strong crowd.

“When the final whistle goes and you’ve found a way to take the opportunities and come off with what the scoreboard said was reasonably comfortable in the end, it’s a pretty proud moment from a team point of view, and from a personal point of view to get theJOB done.”

Once again, McCaw said the All Blacks had shown the ability to remain calm and composed under pressure as they patiently waited for the crucial moment that would sway the test.

“When you talk about tests being 80 minutes you have to believe it’s not all going to go your way all the time, but it’s never going to go against you all the time either,” he said.

“So it’s about influencing the momentum. Sure there were times when we were down on the scoreboard (16-15) with 10 minutes to go, but we were getting into the gama nd they looked pretty tired.

“All we had to do was hold the ball and when you’ve got guys with the talent we’ve got when an opportunity pops up we take it.”

That moment came in the 70th minute when Beauden Barrett chipped ahead, regathered a perfect bounce and tore through Wales fullback Leigh Halfpenny for a brilliant solo try.

“You can see that hurt them mentally and our guys lifted,” McCaw said.

“When you go through experiences often enough you start knowing one moment can have an influence on the rest of the game , and that’s pretty much what happened today.”

Wales did what they could to slow the match down despite McCaw saying he repeatedly asked English referee Wayne Barnes about the delays before every scrum and lineout.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen saw the tactic in play , but said it had not affected his side because they simply accepted it as something they had to adjust to on the day.

“I thought the law said you only have to stop if it’s a front rower at a scrum, but every single one was stopped, but again, we can’t control that so there’s no point getting too worried about it. We have to adapt and adjust.”

Hansen praised Wales’ first half defensive effort as the best the All Blacks had faced this season, but said it had clearly taken a lot of of the home team’s legs by the final quarter.

“We talked about that at halftime. You are asking a team to have that much energy defensively and I don’t think that’s possible for a whole game… I think their issue was they had to defend for long periods and it’s a lot harder defending than it is attacking.”

Hansen said the All Blacks had tried to use their short kicking game in the first half to get behind Wales’ rushing defence, but hadn’t held the ball long enough to create momentum.

He was pleased with the way they had worked things out in the second half in that area with a Barrett cross kick to Conrad Smith creating Jerome Kaino’s try, and another from Colin Slade leading to Barrett’s second try.

Hansen was pleased with the way Barrett and Slade worked as dual pivots in the final 25 minutes and singled out the latter for special praise saying he had done the job for the All Blacks every time he was called on this season.

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