All Blacks coach Ian Foster was left "delighted" by his side's semifinal performance against Argentina with 80 minutes now between him and leaving his job on the ultimate high.
The All Blacks outclassed the Pumas to post a 44-6 win in Paris this morning, booking themselves a place in the Rugby World Cup final next weekend where either England or South Africa will await them, depending on tomorrow morning's other semifinal.
It's a stark contrast to where the All Blacks were a month ago after they opened their campaign with a loss to now-eliminated France, having previously also suffered a heavy defeat to the Springboks.
But since then the All Blacks have continued to build and are now within reach a record fourth World Cup.
“Every week is a final," Foster said shortly after the final whistle this morning.
"To go away with a 44-6 scoreline....we were under a lot of pressure for parts of that game, but we held our composure and I think we were clinical when we needed to be."
Foster said with rugby's biggest stage now beckoning as the crescendo to his rollercoaster tenure, he's simply going to enjoy the week and then the moment.
“This is the fun part,” Foster said. “The pool play is hard work, because you're building things.
“But, we got through the last two playoff games, and we're confident with where we’re at.
“We know we're going to have to be better next week whoever we play, but you've got to keep celebrating the moment. It's a good place to be right now.”
With that said, the All Blacks coach did have a few points of focus he's already looking to address in review with the team.
“We wanted to start a little bit better than what we did. We got put under a little bit of pressure, and we didn't exit that well," he added.
“But I think the thing that we're enjoying is that we're not panicking when things don't go right for us straight away.
“We've perhaps had patches of that in the past, but we're holding that composure and just waiting for the opportunity to strike."
Foster pointed to the All Blacks' five minutes either side of halftime - where they scored at both ends via Shannon Frizell and Aaron Smith - as an example of timing their patient attacks.
"It was a tight first half and those last two or three minutes were pretty important in the game."
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