On rewatching the game, it's clear to me that our kicking played an enormous role in our victory.
It was a textbook 'how to beat the All Blacks' game. Kicks were either contestable, or deep and into touch. I didn't keep a count but we were almost perfect in this regard. It's genuinely the best I've ever seen us kick. Combine that with our better handling and we only gave the ABs a couple of broken field opportunities in the whole 80 minutes.
Nic White was a big part of it. I didn't love his game on first watch, but his box kicking was really good. It's a clear tactic and a hallmark of the Rennie era - utilising an accurate, contested kick as a slow ball option when in our own half.
It's just so refreshing to see a tactic that clearly makes sense, and we've clearly practised it a bunch. And just miles better than the Cheika 'let's run it in our own half and damn the consequences cos we're Ozzies maaate'.
Add to that the boot of Hodge which was outstanding as always, but also a few nice kicks from Banks and Paisami (one misguided grubber aside).
I'm not going to pretend this is a sign of a new era of dominance, but in these four games we've shown that our game plan is good enough to beat the ABs if we turn up on the day and play well. Dare I say we've played smarter (in games 1 and 4) than the ABs. And I don't think we've been able to say that for a long while.
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