Focus again falls on All Blacks' set pieces

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All Blacks coach Graham Henry has congratulated South Africa on a "richly deserved" Tri-nations title but the focus has one again fallen on the All Blacks' failures rather than any good play of the visitors.

The Springboks resisted a late charge from the All Blacks to triumph 32-29 at Waikato Stadium on Saturday night, but had the hosts played as well in the opening hour as they did in the last 20 minutes it would surely have ended differently.

And the All Blacks only have themselves to blame.

"We turned over too much ball, didn't have the structure up front at the set piece for a lot of time in the first half and when we did look likely we turned the ball over in the tackles," Henry said when asked what went wrong.

But a clearly frustrated coach - not for the first time this season - has seen some positives out of the loss.

And they're going to need them if they want to rebound against Australia in Wellington next weekend and avoid picking up the Tri-nations' wooden spoon.

"The guys again showed a lot of character coming back when the game looked lost and could have pulled it out of the fire," Henry said.

"We just need to play for longer periods of time with a lot more consistency. Our lineout got a lot better in the second half, we held on to a bit of ball and we started to stretch them.

"We looked a good side so it's about getting the foundations right, the set piece and the work at the tackle."

And not for the first time this season - or indeed this decade - it was the lineout which was probably the biggest issue for the All Blacks, especially in the dreadful opening period.

But Henry doesn't appear to believe it's anything to do with the almost mystical abilities of Springbok Victor Matfield as some have suggested, but because of a lack of confidence when jumpers aren't hit early.

And while forwards' coach Steve Hansen said the lineout woes were "obviously disappointing" he thinks the improvements shown in the second half will boost the team ahead of next week.

"You can't get a platform going if you don't win yours and we didn't do that. In the second half we came out and apart from Horey's [hooker Andrew Hore] first throw which was not straight we won all our ball and won it cleanly," Hansen said.

"The first half we made human errors. We didn't have a back lifter on the first throw, overthrew the second one and didn't have a backlifter on the next one."

And there were signs during the game that not only did the All Blacks' lineout improve on their own ball but they also showed up the occasional weakness in the famed Springbok one too.

"I suppose the thing about the lineout for me in that first half was we managed to put them under a lot of pressure too. The ball that they won was pretty untidy," Hansen said.

And although Hansen was generally happy to focus on the positives - "It's a work in progress and we made good progress against what's deemed to be the best lineout in the world," - perversely there was one lineout Hansen wished his charges hadn't won.

That one came in the 51st minute when good clean ball was won for probably the first time in the match but Dan Carter's pass was intercepted by Jean de Villiers for what turned out to be the winning try.

Whether the All Blacks' fans appreciate the irony is a different matter altogether, though.