33 - 6: All Blacks defeat South Africa

Hayman's Beard is a little confused.

Not confused with the gameplan, the style, the score, or the opposition.

We're confused on how to feel.

Anytime you beat the Springboks, it's a good thing. Right? Especially when you're able to play for the full 80 and come away with a 27-point victory.

Any yet.....we're confused. We know we should be feeling good, but we don't. We know we should be feeling happy, but we're not. In fact we're nervous. And we hate that.

There are in fact a lot of positives. Hayman's Beard had never been a fan of Leonard before Saturday, but he was an inspiration, and would have done his chances of a World Cup spot no harm. He injected the kind of enthusiasm Byron does from the bench, and with a different style to Piri he was able to change the nature of the attack.
Dan played well. Not up to his incredibly high standards of course, but still better than most 1st-5s around the world.
As a Luke McAlister fan, Hayman's Beard was impressed with his increased defensive effort, as well as the line breaks he's known for. We still fear the All Blacks are trying to play too laterally, shovelling the ball out as far as they can regardless of the situation....we need more vision than that, and more positional kicking. Certainly better than the Melbourne test, our situational kicking still has plenty of room for impovement.

Along with everything else.