The All Blacks flew from Cape Town to Durban on Saturday with a win, a bonus and a list of problems. Forwards coach Neil Barnes did not attempt to hide the third item.
New Zealand beat the Stormers 38-21 at DHL Stadium in the opening match of Rugby's Greatest Rivalry, but the scoreline was built almost entirely in the final quarter. Before that, a second-string pack conceded 16 penalties across the match, shipped three yellow cards and spent long stretches on the wrong side of English referee Karl Dickson.
"The other team put us under a fair bit of pressure. We were on the wrong side of the referee for a fair bit of it," Barnes said. "With all that adversity, down to 13 players, we still fought our way back to a good win so plenty of lessons to take out of that."
He was blunter about what the exercise revealed with four Tests against the Springboks starting at Ellis Park on 22 August.
"It's not like we haven't planned for what the rugby will be like over here but the boys just need to experience it. We'll be better for it," he said.
"When it gets to the Boks it's going to go up tenfold. The lessons I see as a positive. The worst thing would have been if we got through that game without any challenges and had the Boks coming. They've exposed us. We've got to have a look at it and try and fix it."
The scrum was the sharpest concern. Pasilio Tosi conceded three penalties in the set piece, and Barnes framed the difference as much cultural as technical.
"We knew what was coming. That's the way they play over here we don't experience it too much," he said. "Our scrums back home are a starting point. It's a game with the referees as well over here. We've got to try and find ways to lessen those opportunities.
"The front row out there yesterday were pretty young. Now they know what it's like."
Barnes declined to blame Dickson, who will also referee the fourth Test against South Africa in Baltimore.
"I'm not going to say I was enjoying how it was flowing but there's some parts of the world that's how they play. We don't get to dictate how everyone plays," he said. "If they want to play that way we've got to counter it. There's no use complaining about how it's officiated we've got to adjust and stop it ourselves."
Then he set his own deadline.
"If I'm sitting in the same place in three weeks' time saying the same things you can say to me you need to sort your crap out."
Head coach Dave Rennie's post-match read was similar, if softer in tone. He pointed to the nine penalties conceded in the first half alone and the ease with which the home side built field position from them.
"We know other teams are going to come there and we're going to have to do a better job on stopping momentum initially — not allowing them to piggyback," Rennie said.
"They were all things that we expected and we would have liked to have dealt with them a little bit better, but just a heap of character. We felt if we held the ball we could eventually find space and hurt them and we were very clinical late in the game."
The physical toll ran both ways. Stormers director of rugby John Dobson finished the match without a recognised halfback after Imad Khan limped off inside three minutes and 38-year-old replacement Dewaldt Duvenage broke his arm in what was his last game for the franchise.
"Imad's got a reasonably serious knee injury, and Dewaldt suffered a broken arm," Dobson said. "It's funny because the ref was getting irritated because we kept changing captains, but what were we meant to do? They all got injured."
Not everything in Cape Town was a warning. Loose forward Peter Lakai was outstanding and has arguably played himself into the Test side, Fabian Holland made two telling lineout steals on his return from injury, and Anton Segner impressed as a late inclusion after Wallace Sititi fell ill. Beauden Barrett, in his first outing in nearly two months, had a mixed night — and got public backing from his forwards coach.
"He's been outstanding. He's a leader in our team," Barnes said. "That's his first hit out in quite a long time so if I were him, I'd be pretty pleased with his efforts."
Centre Billy Proctor's tour is in doubt after a shoulder injury, with a diagnosis still pending. The All Blacks face the Sharks in Durban on Tuesday, then the Bulls four days later, before the Test series begins.
