Coach Graham Henry wants to use New Zealand's rare Tri-Nations' loss to Australia as motivation for the All Blacks to go on and win the World Cup later this year.
The All Blacks, dominant in the opening half and leading 15-6, paid for not putting the resilient Wallabies away and failed to register a point in the last 54 minutes to go down 20-15 here Saturday.
It was New Zealand's first Test defeat since losing to South Africa 21-20 in Rustenburg last September and their first loss to the Australians in six Tests, stretching back to August 2004. Skipper Richie McCaw spoke of letting the Wallabies off the hook with No 8 Rodney So'oialo and inside-centre Aaron Mauger both fumbling try-scoring chances which if converted would have probably put the All Blacks out of reach.
Henry has the task of tempering home expectations of winning a second World Cup in France in October, such has been the All Blacks' glorious run of form - they haven't lost a home Test, a sequence of 24 consecutive wins, for four years.
The All Blacks have lost only five of their 41 Tests since the 2003 World Cup, when they were sensationally knocked out in the semi-finals by unfancied Australia. Saturday's loss recalled memories of that painful 22-10 loss to the Wallabies and again it was Stirling Mortlock who plunged the dagger into the All Blacks with his linebreak that set up replacement Scott Staniforth's winning try eight minutes from time. "Hopefully, we'll learn a lot from this fixture and it's better to lose now than in October at the World Cup," Henry said Sunday.
"Hopefully, it will be a big learning experience for us all. "This side hasn't lost often and I think you learn a lot from losing and hopefully we do learn from that." Henry praised the Wallabies for fighting their way back after a ragged first half to keep the All Blacks scoreless for the entire second half. "They finished stronger than we did, the Australians played particularly well in the last 20 minutes and deserved their win," he said.
"We've been saying all along that the Australians are a pretty good rugby side, the Australians would understand that, maybe the New Zealanders still find that hard to handle, but they deserved to win. "We didn't take a few opportunities and we got opened up a couple of times in defence.
"Hopefully, we'll look back on this as a very important game for us and show the character from learning from this game and improve in the future." Skipper and open-side flanker Richie McCaw, who missed key tackles in the leadup to Australia's two second-half tries, said the All Blacks let the Wallabies off the hook.
"We weren't getting across the advantage line in our own half in the second half, we turned the ball over a couple of times and looking back on it we should have put the ball in front of us a couple of times," McCaw said. "We let them off the hook a bit, they got a sniff and a Test match like that with a couple of mis-tackles, some points and they were right back in the game.
"At halftime we had them on the ropes and perhaps if we scored early in the second half it may have been a different story. "The Wallabies are a team that never lie down and they came out on top in the second half." New Zealand's backs coach Wayne Smith praised Mortlock's contribution to the Wallabies' victory. "To me, Mortlock typified the Australian performance. He ran really hard, he chased hard and they were up for it big-time. Stirling made some critical line breaks," he said.
"We'll have to look at it, analyse it well and learn from it. It could be a very good game for us ultimately. "We all have to look at our performances and I'm no different to anyone else. I'll learn a lot from it and I'm sure the players will."
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