Dave Rennie sees progress despite series defeat

All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie believes New Zealand made important progress during their demanding tour despite admitting the 3-1 Greatest Rivalry series defeat to South Africa was painful.

Dave Rennie reflects on All Blacks series defeat

The Springboks secured the series with a 43-28 victory at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, winning three consecutive Tests after New Zealand claimed the opening encounter in Johannesburg.

South Africa proved more clinical in the finale, scoring six tries as the All Blacks struggled to capitalise on opportunities and made costly errors at key moments.

More than 68,000 spectators attended the Baltimore Test, which concluded New Zealand’s eight-match tour spanning more than six weeks.

Asked for his immediate reaction to the series defeat, Rennie described himself as “gutted”.

“We were confident that if we got a few things right tonight, we'd have a good chance of winning and fell short,” he said.

All Blacks take lessons from demanding tour

New Zealand entered the final Test without captain Ardie Savea, Luke Jacobson and Quinn Tupaea after all three returned home through injury following the third Test.

Despite the setbacks, Rennie believes the demanding programme has helped his coaching staff develop a clearer understanding of the team and its game model.

He said the difficulty of the tour was one of the reasons he had been excited about the challenge after taking charge of the All Blacks.

"So, yeah, disappointing from that perspective.

"From a tour point of view, you know, I think I said three, four or five months ago whenever I got appointed that I was really excited about the tour coming here because we knew it was going to be tough, but we'd learn a lot about ourselves and we'd leave with a better understanding of our game model and tighter as a group".