All Blacks coach Ian Foster said Thursday that New Zealand will need to play without fear against Argentina in Hamilton on Saturday to avenge their shock defeat last weekend and prevent the humiliation of losing a fourth successive home Test.
The under-fire Foster surprised critics by naming the same starting players who lost 25-18 in Christchurch as the Pumas made history with their first victory over the All Blacks in New Zealand.
"If you play under fear, you restrict your options, you restrict your thinking and what actually happens is you don't get your game going," Foster said. Cheika dropped his lone Christchurch try-scorer, flanker Juan Martin Gonzalez, to the bench along with lock Matias Alemanno, wing Lucio Cinti and scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou.
"There's absolutely no benefit for any of us to think about anything like that," though he conceded that Ireland's successive wins in July"gives us some hope". "It's an area where I think great All Blacks teams have always been great -- in that last 15 minutes -- backing themselves and doing the right thing," he said."On the field we have to get better than that."
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