New Zealand coach Graham Henry was far from happy with his team's performance in their 27-6 victory over Italy.

The All Blacks outscored their opponents three tries to none with wing Joe Rokocoko, rookie lock Isaac Ross and substitute loose forward George Whitelock, on debut, all dotting down, but it was a scrappy game - punctuated by too many errors and missed opportunities.

"It was a disappointing performance, a very disappointing performance," Henry admitted. "It perhaps got a little bit better in the second half than the first."

He added: "I thought the Italians defended well and controlled the kicking game so they had a big territorial advantage.

"We are pretty disappointed with the way the guys played. We've got a lot of work to do before we play Australia in two weeks time."

Henry read the riot act to his side at half-time after watching them get harried into errors by a dogged Italian side that defended staunchly and played the territorial game well with some good kicking from scrum-half Tito Tebaldi and league convert Craig Gower.

"You've got to give a lot of credit to the Italians. They defended astutely. They had a very good kicking game. They had a very narrow game plan which they implemented very well and put a lot of pressure on us," said Henry.