Steve Hansen: 'New Zealand must stay positive'

New Zealand coach Steve Hansen has urged his players to remain positive following their defeat to Australia in the Rugby Championship.

The All Blacks missed out on a fourth consecutive title on Saturday as the Wallabies earned a 27-19 win in Sydney to lift the trophy.

Despite being on the wrong end of the result, Hansen is confident that his team will recover quickly ahead of next weekend's clash in Auckland.

"The key thing is we don't lose confidence in what we are about," he is quoted as saying by Sky Sports News. "We've just got to go back and have a good honest look at ourselves: did we prepare properly, did we coach well enough, mentally were we in the right place?

"Australia out-scrummed us, they beat us on the floor and they won the space over the ball. Until we fix some of those problems we are going to let teams into our games.

"[My players] are good at learning, good at adapting and they're hungry and want to be better. We're going to have to be a lot better next week."

New Zealand were unbeaten in 10 games against Australia before Saturday's defeat at the ANZ Stadium.