All Blacks lose Brodie Retallick for Eight Weeks

Retallick suffered the injury when clashing heads with Irish prop Andrew Porter who was sin-binned for the offence.

Watching the visitors secure their first Test win on New Zealand soil last week and their first series win on Saturday, Foster congratulated Ireland on their win. The All Blacks knew after Ireland's success of the last 18 months they were going to be a test, and New Zealand had fallen short against them.

"We tried hard, we wanted to start well. Again, we made a couple of defensive errors early that put us under a lot of pressure. We came back really strong, but they wrested a little bit of momentum at key points in the second half that stopped us having a good crack at it," he said.

"That's the mark of a confident team that knows their game at the moment, and clearly we've got a little bit of work to do."

They would do their analysis of the series, a series where there were disruptions to their plans, but there had been some aspects where improvements had occurred.

They had not been bothered by line speed as much as previously. There were some things they got right, but they were not getting enough big moments right, including the starts, he said.

Several new players had been exposed to Test rugby in a more intense series than they had faced for some time, and it had given the group a massive marker about where they were situated.

In the second half, the All Blacks carried the ball more directly while some of their counter-attacks were working well, but there were times, especially after line-breaks, when they couldn't get support quick enough which were moments that hurt, he said.

Foster said it would be disrespectful not to acknowledge what Ireland had achieved. It was a special feat and they deserved time in the sun for that.

"For us, we're a group working hard, we're working on solutions, and we've got belief in many of the solutions we got, but now we have to get better executing them and we've been given a real marker in the sand of where we're at," he said.

Captain Sam Cane said Ireland had proved a hard team to get consistent momentum against. The All Blacks had started the second half well but Ireland had managed to wrestle it back.

"Credit to Ireland, we've got a heck of a lot of respect for them, as a footy team, as players and a nation, and they came down here and tested us and we were beaten by a better side tonight," he said.

Cane said the side went into the game confident because of the hard work involved in their preparation, but in the game there was too much inconsistency between the good and bad moments.

"When we go back-to-back with good stuff we look flash, we got the job done for periods. Too many times, we're not backing those up. I know the boys are trying extremely hard and are hurting a lot right now.

"The only good thing that can come out of this is that we use it as fuel to get better. If we don't learn, if we don't use this whole experience of this series to learn, and be better, then it is just wasted.

"We've got to pick ourselves up quickly, look at solutions, look at positives and find a way to go forward from it because if we don't it is wasted," he said.