New Zealand still have a lot of improvement to come before they can be considered favourites for the World Cup, captain Richie McCaw has declared.
Despite being considered to be the best team in rugby the All Blacks have failed to live up to expectations in the World Cup - they won the inaugural event in 1987 but have not reached the final since 1995 - and there have been some suggestions that have peaked too soon for the next year's finals in New Zealand.
McCaw disagrees, however, believing that the Tri-Nations winners are by no means the complete article and that there is a lot of work to do over the coming 12 months.
"We've got to be confident, people talk about peaking and all that sort of stuff but you only peak when you don't think you can get any better," McCaw said.
"Sure we've been happy with what we've done this year but we'd be kidding ourselves if we thought we were playing good enough for 12 month's time.
"We've got to still look at ways of improving and I think there's still a lot of potential to do that.
"I'd love to win it but I don't get hung up to the point that it ruins my life. As you get closer you put more and more energy into it (but) I also want to enjoy the rugby now."