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New Zealand's improved performance in their victory over France on Saturday should hold them in good stead for the remainder of the international season, All Blacks assistant coach Steve Hansen said.

New Zealand won the second test 14-10 after putting on a much better display in Wellington than in the 27-22 loss in the first test in Dunedin last week.

While the series was locked at 1-1, France won the Dave Gallaher Cup for the first time since it was introduced in 2000 courtesy of their five-point victory at Carisbrook.

"What it has done is given everyone a reality check about where they need to be at," Hansen said. "We saw an improved performance from week one to week two."

The All Blacks were without several highly-experienced players, including regular captain Richie McCaw, for the French series and had to rely on a good few players only introduced to test rugby within the last 12 months.

"Even though we have got a high number of caps based around a group of players, we still have a lot of guys who are reasonably new to test rugby," Hansen added.

"To get the quality of test matches we had last night and down in Dunedin gives the guys a true understanding of what is required."

The All Blacks face Italy next week in Christchurch and Hansen said they were likely to face the same style and intensity they encountered against France.

"They played pretty well last night against Australia," the former Wales coach said of Italy, who lost 34-12 to the Wallabies in Melbourne.

"They play a similar style to France. They have based their rugby around French rugby. A lot of them play in France.

"They have had French coaches on and off for a few years... their rugby is very similar (and) there will be periods (next week) where it will be of a high intensity.

"It just depends on how long they can sustain it."

Although the All Blacks improved, the scrum still suffered in the first 25 minutes in Wellington, at times disintegrating under French pressure.

Hansen, however, said he felt the set piece had got better as the match progressed and, while the All Blacks had dominated their opposition in the past, it continued to be a work in progress.

"Scrummaging is a difficult thing," Hansen said. "You can be half a notch out and it becomes quite difficult.

"What we have tried to do over the years is scrum as an eight and we have a few new faces in there.

"It just takes time to gel that in. We have seen an improvement from last week to this week.

"I thought at the end of the match we got on top of them. Certainly on our own ball it was pretty stable and Reado (number eight Kieran Read) was able to operate off a pretty functional platform."

Reuters