BERRICK BARNES must have thought he was back in the Brisbane Broncos colours doing tackling drills.

When the Wallabies consider who was their man of the match against the Springboks, Barnes, along with all of the back-rowers and five-eighth Matt Giteau, would be right up there.

What made Barnes stand out was what he was doing just centimetres from the ground, and then what he achieved with his final-minute, 35-metre field goal to guarantee the Wallabies' opening Tri Nations triumph.

He tried a similar kick earlier in the game, and it snaked badly off his boot. That didn't deter him. The second was perfect.

"Practice every now and again means it comes to fruition," Barnes said. "But I just pulled that one out of my arse, that's all."

The kick wasn't pre-meditated. "I just thought, 'Oh well, no better chance than now'. There was no one coming down at me. So I hit it, hoped, and it went over, thank God."

His defence was even better. "It was almost like being back in the league days," he said. "They were standing the big forwards out wide running at the small blokes. We knew they were coming. You had to go low, because you would have been bumped off. They had [Pierre] Spies, [Juan] Smith, [Schalk] Burger coming at you, and then they had more people coming at you off the bench. It never stopped.

"I think Matt [Giteau] deserves a lot of credit as well, because it was pretty outstanding defence. We have our structure, and how we want to defend, but they made a couple of line breaks, which we will have to fix. Other than that, I thought it was pretty good."

Barnes knows that New Zealand will attempt a similar formula in aiming runners around his zone. "We were trying to be a bit more patient this week," he said. "And we were creating line breaks, which is a positive sign.

"However, the new rules don't allow you to get complacent. You're on the go all the time. There's so much intensity and it was physical. After 80 minutes, I just felt buggered."

When the Wallabies go into camp in Sydney today they will check on the fitness of second-rower Dan Vickerman, who played for Sydney University on Saturday and hopes to make the Bledisloe Cup 22-man squad.