New Zealand coach Wayne Smith kept his feet firmly on the ground after his team's 25-12 victory over the Springboks in their Tri-Nations encounter at Jade Stadium on Saturday.

The All Blacks are setting the early pace after beating the Wallabies last weekend and proving to be the Springboks' nemesis in Christchurch.

But Smith, whose team takes on the Wallabies at Wellington on August 5, was not prepared to dwell too much on the great position they find themselves in. He had quite sobering thoughts on the current Tri-Nations situation.

He was very diplomatic in his response to being asked about his team's chances of taking the title. "I don't really think too much of the Tri-Nations as such. I just think about them as Test matches and games that we need to win. It doesn't really matter who it is against or what it's for. It is a Test match in the black and we have to play them well."

Smith said Saturday's game was a typical All Black-Springbok Test. "It's quite good for us that we could battle through something as tight as that. The guys can take quite a bit of confidence from the fact that they could come out after halftime and just grind out a win.

"I think our defence was really good, especially in the second half. Andrew Mehrtens (pictured) played his part in that. He ran at the line and created some play. We still have a lot of work to do, especially in our attacking strategies."

The Boks were expected to try and single out Mehrtens for special attention on the offense, but could never manage to attack that channel.

Questions were asked about the All Blacks' attacking play, as well as the role the centre pairing of Pita Alatini and Mark Robinson played. The coach, however, was unperturbed. "We will work that out over the next couple of weeks before we play against Australia.

"We will work on different strategies. Today was just one of those days where we tried to put the ball behind them. We didn't have many opportunities out wide and those guys cannot create miracles."