Richie McCaw called for more but got a lot less than expected when the All Blacks let themselves down with a 43-10 win over minnows Georgia.
“It wasn’t perfect,” the All Blacks captain admitted after.
“There’s a lot of things we could have done better for sure,” added coach Steve Hansen who tried to put a gloss on the error-ridden showing by saying the things his defending champions wanted to work came off as planned.
With three wins out of three they are now through to the quarter-finals with a game to spare.
But there was no denying the All Blacks struggled in the basics of a game and were outmuscled for long periods in a bruising encounter with a minnow side they were supposed to beat easily.
They scored four tries in racing to a 22-10 lead in the first quarter before going off the boil.
It took another 30 minutes before they were back on the board again.
“I was a little disappointed with some of the errors we made, but that’s an easy thing to fix,” McCaw said.
“We’re under no illusions it wasn’t perfect out there but I thought the intensity around some of those contact areas was a definite step up.”
The All Blacks fear going into the World Cup was they faced the same scenario as 2007 when they had an easy run through pool play which left them unprepared going into the quarter-finals and they lost their first knockout game.
Back then it was Scotland, Italy, Romania and Portugal in their pool.
This time it is Argentina, Tonga, Namibia and Georgia.
Hansen declared the All Blacks were working on parts of their game and not trying to perfect everything all at once.
“There’s a lot of things we could have done better for sure. Our execution at times was not great,” he said.
“If we had one problem I think would be the easiest to fix in this team it would be skill execution. We’ve got plenty of talent.
“But at the moment we are working on some other things and the things we were working on tonight were pretty good. I wouldn’t say our game was great but it doesn’t have to be at the moment.”
Hansen said even if the All Blacks had won by a much bigger score it would have done nothing for them.
They were confronting problems and that was making them better, he said, identifying “the shooter” where Georgia sent a sole defender up first to disrupt their attacking rhythm as something the New Zealanders would have to learn to combat.
Hansen would not be drawn on how the other top nations are faring in the tournament, particularly Pool A where one of Australia, England or Wales will miss out on qualifying, and Pool B where South Africa is in jeopardy.
The only threat to New Zealand was Tonga in their next game, he said.
“We haven’t earned the right to look past that. We’ll look at Tonga and say ‘what do we want to get out of that game and how are we going to get it’.”