Ranked: The best and worst of the All Blacks' Tests in 2023

Analysis: The All Blacks got agonisingly close to South Africa in the World Cup final, but where does that performance rate? Patrick McKendry assesses the team's year, from worst Tests to best.

In retrospect, this record defeat for the All Blacks foreshadowed what for them was an epic disappointment of a World Cup final against the same opposition. Tom Foley was the television match official for both matches and made his presence felt to the fullest on both occasions. In the warm-up match, the All Blacks failed to get on the same wavelength as English referee Matt Carley and coughed up five penalties in the opening 10 minutes. Likewise, in the final the All Blacks appeared to struggle to get through to Wayne Barnes. At Twickenham, Scott Barrett was red carded for two yellows which would rule him out of the World Cup opener against France and prop Tyrel Lomax went off early due to a badly cut thigh. The Boks scored five tries to the All Blacks’ one. Prop Ethan de Groot was almost whistled off the park by Carley. It was a wretched result and performance for the All Blacks, the only highlight being 22-year-old halfback Cam Roigard’s cameo off the bench.

The All Blacks’ victory in Melbourne, which locked up the Bledisloe Cup for another year, gave Ian Foster the confidence to roll the dice on his selections for Dunedin. He made 13 changes, with Damian McKenzie starting at No.10, Shaun Stevenson on debut on the right wing and Samipeni Finau on debut at lock. Halfback Finlay Christie was another change. The All Blacks were also Barrett-less. It didn’t go well, the Wallabies streaking out to a 17-3 halftime lead and the home side lacking control in nearly every aspect. The emergence from the bench of prop Ofa Tu’ungafasi, halfback Aaron Smith, and first-five Richie Mo’unga coincided with the All Blacks’ comeback. Mo’unga, in what was likely his final Test at home, kicked the penalty in the final minute to seal it.

A near perfect World Cup opener for Les Bleus, and a poor one for the All Blacks, who were ill-disciplined in giving up 12 penalties to the hosts’ four, with Will Jordan yellow carded in the second half. The All Blacks began each half with tries for wing Mark Telea but seemed to run out of attacking ideas for the remainder. They badly missed injured skipper Sam Cane and midfielder Jordie Barrett. An underwhelming performance from the All Blacks which didn’t bode well for the rest of the tournament.

The red card for Ethan de Groot soured this performance by the All Blacks which was predictably convincing against a second-tier opponent. De Groot’s dismissal came late in the match for a high tackle, the All Blacks against struggling with their discipline. Namibia’s scrum had no answer to what the All Blacks provided and their backline couldn’t stay in touch with the All Blacks’ lightning-fast strikes. The All Blacks scored 11 tries, with Cam Roigard and Damian McKenzie scoring a double each. Roigard’s performance – he scored his two in the opening seven minutes - raised questions about whether he would overtake Finlay Christie as the team’s second-best halfback in France. No, as it turned out.

This was a good performance by the All Blacks against another Tier 2 nation, who contested the breakdown far harder than Italy did a week earlier. “It was a tough test match, particularly in that first half,” skipper Sam Cane said afterwards. “We were really made to work for it.” The All Blacks led only 26-0 at the break, but poured it on in the second half. They scored 11 tries in total, with Leicester Fainga’anuku scoring three and Damian McKenzie and Will Jordan bagging two each. The sight of Tyrel Lomax leaving the field with a knee injury chilled the hearts of All Blacks fans everywhere but he made a quick comeback.

Okay, let’s try to make this as painless as possible. As well as the All Blacks played to get to within one point of South Africa in the World Cup final without skipper Sam Cane for the second half, they didn’t play particularly well with him on the field. They appeared gun-shy at the start, their lineouts were a bit of a miss, and they didn’t cope well with the Boks’ inevitable high kicks. On the plus side, they showed admirable resolve to cope with the absence of Cane, red carded for a high tackle, and the earlier (debatable) yellow card for Shannon Frizell for a ruck cleanout. They scored the game’s only try via Beauden Barrett and had one ruled out for Aaron Smith. They played virtually all the rugby in the final quarter against a very good defensive team who had won their previous two knockout matches by one point. It wasn’t enough.

This was an excellent result in Mendoza for the All Blacks, who had Josh Lord starting at lock and Damian McKenzie at No.10 in their first Rugby Championship match. The visitors led 31-0 at halftime, the Pumas paying the price for their wayward kicking. The home side played far more intelligently in the second half, scoring a victory of sorts as they outscored the All Blacks by retaining possession and forcing their opponents to commit and make tackles. McKenzie impressed as did wing Emoni Narawa, who scored a try on his Test debut.

It’s perhaps easy to forget that Ian Foster’s men went into this must-win match in the midst of a vague uneasiness settling around New Zealand. After losing to France in the World Cup opener, the All Blacks had to beat a side who pushed them for 40 minutes during their Test in Rome at the end of 2021. Would the All Blacks compound their first ever World Cup pool loss with the unthinkable? As it happened, no, certainly not. On the occasion of Sam Whitelock’s 149th Test cap, the All Blacks ripped Italy apart in scoring 14 tries to two. Italy’s set piece was obliterated. Aaron Smith scored a hat-trick of tries. Shannon Frizell and Jordie Barrett, both returning from injury, added size and power to New Zealand’s line-up. “They monstered us, didn’t they,” Italy coach Kieran Crowley said. “It was like a training run for them in the end… They played bloody well.”

A blitzkrieg of a start by the All Blacks, who led 20-3 at halftime after converted tries for Aaron Smith and Shannon Frizell and two Richie Mo’unga penalties. The Boks came back via Malcolm Marx and Cheslin Kolbe to trail 23-15 with 17 minutes remaining but the All Blacks surged again through Will Jordan and Mo’unga. The Test was a coming-of-age match for loose forward Frizell, who went on to become the All Blacks’ first-choice blindside flanker due to his physicality and work rate. His try came after he burst over the top of fullback Willie le Roux in a show of complete dominance. It was an important victory for the All Blacks,who lost one and won one against the Boks a year earlier, but there remained nagging doubts that the world champions were a little underdone and perhaps weren’t taking it as seriously as the home side.

This six-tries-to-one victory over the Wallabies allowed the All Blacks to lock up the Bledisloe Cup for another year and deny the Aussies a sniff of a trophy they haven’t held since 2003. It came after the convincing Rugby Championship victories over Argentina and South Africa after a week of typically tough talk from Wallabies coach Eddie Jones, who of course is now long gone. The Wallabies had to make twice as many tackles as the visitors in the first half, the All Blacks cutting loose in the final quarter as Caleb Clarke, Mark Telea and Rieko Ioane took advantage of the tiring defence. The All Blacks struggled to get out of their own territory in the third quarter but were never troubled. The Test was notable for a giant tackle by Scott Barrett on halfback Tate McDermott after the Wallabies won a lineout on their try-line after three minutes – Shannon Frizell scoring from it – and the huge crowd of almost 85,000. One wonders, given Australian rugby’s struggles this year, whether they could attract such a crowd in 2024.

As World Cup knockout matches go, this was about as stress-free for the winners as it gets. In fact, it was the All Blacks’ second largest semifinal victory after the 49-6 win over Wales in 1987. The All Blacks’ dominance in the sudden death match elevates them to No.2 on this list because while it wasn’t a flawless performance, it was again built on a superior set piece. Also, the expectation heaped on a side who looked so good a week before and who fell at this point four years earlier, cannot be underestimated. A major beneficiary was wing Will Jordan, who scored a hat-trick of tries to get to 31 in his 30th Test and could have had a fourth had Richie Mo’unga elected to pass to him near the end. The All Blacks made great inroads with the direct running of their loose forwards such as Shannon Frizell, who scored a double, and Aaron Smith. Jordie Barrett’s defence was brutal at times. Unfortunately for them, the All Blacks couldn’t repeat their dominance a week later.

There could be only one. This was the All Blacks’ best performance of the Ian Foster era. The former head coach and his assistants got the strategy right and their players responded with intelligence and utter commitment in a World Cup quarter-final they entered as underdogs. They also played with discipline – yellow cards to Aaron Smith and Codie Taylor apart – and perhaps the defining moment will be the way they defended for almost the entire final 10 minutes without giving away a penalty. Few stood taller than skipper Sam Cane. Both sides put in quality performances but the All Blacks, who took a 13-0 lead thanks to Leicester Fainga’anuku’s converted try and two Richie Mo’unga penalties, had that little bit more class. It was a victory built on a brilliant set piece, almost immaculate defending (although Bundee Aki’s try was a little soft), and a canny kicking game. Ardie Savea scored a first-half try, with Will Jordan’s, expertly set up by Richie Mo’unga, a highlight.