The All Blacks have praised their gutsy defence in the final minutes of this morning's Rugby World Cup quarterfinal classic against Ireland, adding their upset performance was fuelled by "receipts" they've kept throughout their recent ups and downs.
New Zealand took down Ireland this morning 28-24 to advance to the semifinals of this year's tournament in a match they entered as genuine underdogs on paper.
Ireland began the match ranked No.1 in the world and boasting a 17-Test winning streak - a spell sparked by their first-ever series win over the All Blacks on New Zealand soil last year.
Those defeats sparked another wave of criticism towards the All Blacks and in particular coach Ian Foster, who managed to keep his job at the time after a meeting with New Zealand Rugby about the team's results.
While the heat has died down significantly since then, it started to surface once more with the All Blacks' heavy losses to the Springboks in August and France at the start of the World Cup last month.
All the while, a "tired and relieved" Ardie Savea - who had another monster performance this morning - said he has been keeping tabs on the commentary and believed it showed in the quarterfinal.
"I held receipts and I let that fuel me and let that fuel the fire for this weekend," Savea said. "I think a lot of the boys did tonight."
When asked whose "receipts" he'd held onto and whether or not that included Ireland, the soft-spoken loose forward gave a small grin and simply replied, "everyone".
First-five Richie Mo'unga, who also had an impressive performance this morning, reiterated that mindset.
"We're proud All Blacks and we're never in the position to be underdogs. The last few years have been tough for copping a bit of flack and rightly so, we haven't been performing that well, but this is a message to our fans back home to keep believing."
Mo'unga added the All Blacks wanted to make a "statement" against Ireland.
"That was part of it and the other part of it was doing it for each other - unless you've been in our circle and know what we've been through, then you don't understand, but the team is tight because of what we've been through.
"Our opportunity now is to show how we respond to all of that and this was a step in the right direction."
The match boiled down to a gutsy finish from the All Blacks as they were forced to defend for almost 40 phases straight while Ireland searched desperately for a winning try.
"We said at the start of this year, if you want to win World Cups then defence is going to win games," Anton Lienert-Brown said.
"Discipline hasn't been our strong point so to go 38 phases [without a penalty], that's what it takes and it was probably our best passage of defensive play in four years.
"It just happened to be tonight."
Discipline was still an issue at times for the All Blacks though, with two yellow cards issued in the contest.
Aaron Smith was one of those sin-binned and the 123-cap halfback conceded as soon as he attempted to intercept the Irish pass but instead simply deflected it - the action that he was penalised for - he knew what was coming.
"It was a reaction but the slow-mo didn't look good and I've played enough to know that if the slow-mo didn't look good, you go and sit on the naughty chair for 10 minutes," Smith said.
"I had no fear or worries after that because I'd already made the biggest mistake you can so I just came back out there and just wanted to dig in and give it everything."
The rest of the team did the same, and it proved to be enough as they earned a spot in the semifinals against Argentina next Saturday.
"We haven't won anything yet so we'll enjoy tonight and then we get back on the horse tomorrow and get ready," Savea said.
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