All Blacks captain Richie McCaw summed up the side's 20-18 win over South Africa to claim a place in the Rugby World Cup final by saying their tournament plan had been to give themselves an opportunity and they had done it the hard way.

The semi-final had been the tough game they expected and it was exciting now to have a crack at next week's final.

McCaw admitted the side's indiscipline was keeping South Africa in the game towards the end of the first half and with Jerome Kaino in the sin bin the side needed to find a little extra under adversity and they had done that.

They held their composure, played at the right end of the field and controlled the greasy ball and the points had come.

All week the talk had been about giving the game everything against the old foe and there had been no surprises in the Springboks approach.

"We had to dig deep and give it everything to get the result. It was one of those Test matches it was great to be part of and great to come out on the right side of it," he said.

The game had been exactly as tough as New Zealand expected.

South Africa's captain Fourie du Preez said: "It's very tough to take, two points – one conversion, one penalty – credit to both teams. It was an unbelievable battle out there but unfortunately we came out on the losing side.

"They kept the pressure on us, upset our lineout ball and we struggled to get out of our own half, and credit to them, nice dropped goal and nice try, unfortunately we couldn't capitalise [when Jerome Kaino was in the sin bin].

"Credit to the All Blacks they played well," he said.

Centre Conrad Smith said there was a lot of satisfaction in the result because it had been the grind the side expected.

"It's completely satisfying. Last week we won by plenty but sometimes these [sorts of games] are more satisfying because we had to dig pretty deep and come from behind. And I'm just proud we're here for another week," he said.

At half-time they knew they needed to fight for the result.

"We had to get off the ground quicker and into contact harder and just [do] the little things because we weren't far off and we started the second half pretty well," he said.

Halfback Aaron Smith felt New Zealand handled the wet conditions well.

"The key for us was putting it behind the South Africans. It's one of those things, it's easier to play without the ball in the wet so it was about executing really good kicks and putting the pressure on them," he said.

When the pressure went on in the last moments as South Africa attempted to get the ball out of their 22m area, the All Blacks had just stood up defensively and had shown how much they wanted it, he said.

Lock Sam Whitelock, who had a big day in the lineouts, said it had been a battle of wills with some massive collisions occurring.

He paid credit to the players outside the match 23 who had helped in the lineout preparations during the week and it proved helpful in the match.

When he made the key steal from Victor Matfield with about 12 minutes to go he said he got a fantastic lift in which he felt he 'almost went through the roof', got the ball and the rest was a bit of a blur.

No.8 Kieran Read said there was a lot of relief at making the final and was proud of the way the side had shown some true grit.

"We really had to show a lot of discipline, which we lacked in the first half, to combat their strength which they went to with the kicking and lineout maul.

"We just had to hang onto the ball at the right end of the field, be a bit more decisive holding up our ball carriers and show a bit of edge about our performance," he said.

Next week would be a massive occasion and New Zealand couldn't just rely on what they had done so far.

Springbok wing Bryan Habana said he was proud of the guts, character, determination and tenacity the South Africans had shown since the shock loss to Japan in round one.

"We laid it all out there on the field today and came up short against a pretty well-drilled, accurate New Zealand side that fully deserved not only to be crowned world champions and No.1 team in the world. They played unbelievably well in the second half," he said.

There had been one or two discipline areas in the second half that didn't allow South Africa to get going and they hadn't been able to get their attacking momentum going.