After the Dunedin nightmare against the Wallabies a fortnight ago All Black captain Anton Oliver was a relieved man to be back on the winning track on Saturday.

The New Zealanders kept their Tri-Nations hopes alive by beating the Springboks 26-15 in torrid conditions in front of a packed Eden Park in Auckland.

After the game Oliver said that not only were the team out to prove a point to the New Zealand public, but to each other also. "We are our own yardstick and it felt that we didn't fire a shot in Dunedin," he said.

"It turned into a game of chess which we weren't good at playing, we made a statement to each other that we could do a bit more and hence we put a performance in that kept the wolves at bay for another week," he quipped in reference to the criticism heaped on the All Blacks since the Australian Test.

Flyhalf Andrew Mehrtens and scrumhalf Byron Kelleher shone after being recalled to the team, but Oliver said they were helped a lot by the ball they were given thanks to the sterling work done by the tight five.

"I have already been told that Andrew and Byron played really well, but Justin (Marshall) and Tony (Brown) could have played just as well behind a forward pack like that, we worked on our clean outs and gave them options.

"We have got six days turn around to win the tournament, so tonight is about enjoying the euphoria of the win then tomorrow we have to knuckle down."

After the defeat against the Wallabies in Dunedin, the victory over South Africa was a huge relief to Oliver and the rest of the team.

"Any win with the jersey on is pretty good, because when you don't win with it on it is not very good. Our defence put them under pressure so we forced mistakes out of them, unfortunately every time they got down in our half we gave a penalty away.

"Early in the second half, if we let the pressure off we knew they could come back and all that good work we done would have been wasted, but fortunately we just kept playing and playing and that penalty try was the turning point and once we scooted out to that lead they were really playing catch up."

A number of punch-ups broke during the game that was ferociously physical, but Oliver said this is the sort of thing you should expect when these two giants of rugby clash.

"There is a lot at stake and if you want to win you have got to be right on the threshold of what's fair and what's not, it's a South Africa v All Blacks Test match, I'm not going to be PC (politically correct) about it, and gosh the whole crowd was loving it!"