The All Blacks camp have given the Cardiff crowd a big thumbs up and rated playing in front of a passionate Principality Stadium as one of the best experiences of their careers.
Centre David Havili has been blown away by the passion shown by Welsh fans on his previous visit to the stadium.
“The atmosphere is amazing, probably one of the best crowds to play in front of. You do thrive off it. It’s awesome to see such passionate fans like the Welsh are,” he said.
He was backed up by winger Sevu Reece, who replaced Havili in last year’s game and scored a try in their 54-16 win.
“You can’t hear your teammates sometimes. You can hear the fans chanting and cheering the Welsh boys. It’s really exciting, it’s cool to be part of.”
After an unconvincing win against Japan last weekend, the All Blacks are expecting another tough battle this weekend against Wayne Pivac’s side.
“We’re at a stage where we’re looking at ourselves, where we’re looking to get better from the Japanese game, and towards the end of the week, we’ll start looking a little bit more at what they’re going to bring,” explained Beauden Barrett.
“No doubt they’ll be staunch. They’re a fit side, they like to play a lot of rugby. We’ll be up for the challenge, but at the moment we’re just focusing on ourselves.”
Ian Foster’s side have already put last week’s performance behind them and Barrett added that there is no such thing as an ‘easy’ Test match these days.
“It just goes to show every Test match anyone can win on the day. We’ve got a lot of room for improvement there so we highlighted areas in our review where we need to be better because it’s going to be another step up back here at Principality Stadium against a hungry Welsh side.”
