Rugby: Rugby-New Zealand out to avoid repeat of 2019 in semi-final week

PARIS (Reuters) – The All Blacks are desperate to avoid any repeat of their disappointing 2019 experience in next week’s World Cup semi-final against Argentina, defence coach Scott McLeod said on Sunday.

Four years ago, New Zealand romped in to the last four with an emphatic 46-14 victory over Ireland only to be caught cold by a brilliant England performance and come a cropper a week later in Yokohama.

Saturday’s win over a much improved Ireland side was by a narrower margin but no less confidence-boosting and McLeod said the All Blacks were determined to get their preparations right for the meeting with the Pumas back at the Stade de France.

“I thought last week our detail, our energy and our focus was top class and it gave the players confidence to go out and execute that under pressure,” McLeod told reporters in a video call.

“In 2019, we didn’t do that as well in our week leading into England, and it’s not necessarily the opposition it’s just the quality of what we put into the week.

“Our captain Kieran Read couldn’t train and there were disruptions. So we have to make sure that we don’t have those disruptions and we build the week with the quality and the focus that we did last week.

“And we respect Argentina, they are a different beast to Ireland and we will slowly build the week. We have to get excited about that and we will.”

Argentina beat the All Blacks for the first time in Sydney in the 2020 Rugby Championship and repeated the feat last year on New Zealand soil in Christchurch.

McLeod said he thought the Pumas would have taken great confidence from coming from behind on Saturday to overcome Wales in their quarter-final.

There was no disguising, however, that McLeod had not yet put Saturday’s match to bed as he reflected on the defensive effort that held out the Irish through 37 phases at the end of a thrilling contest.

“We had to make 276 tackles last night and 100 of those were in the last quarter,” he said.

“The most we’ve had to attempt before in this tournament was 137 against Italy so there’s a huge amount of care and there’s a huge amount of Kiwi ticker, if you like, that we wanted to get the job done.”

(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Christian Radnedge)