New Zealand star Dan Carter said the All Blacks' "heart and desire" could help them claim a historic five-nation Grand Slam after their hard-fought win over Australia.

Carter praised his team's character after they staged another second-half comeback to win the first Bledisloe Cup Test on neutral soil 19-14.

"It's always a tough challenge, doing the Grand Slam. Often you have to grind out wins. We've done it on a couple of occasions now and it's good to know we've got that character within the side," Carter said.

"It goes a long way. When you're not playing as well as you would like, the character of this team is really rewarding."

New Zealand, who also came from behind against Australia in Brisbane last month, now leave for matches against Scotland, Ireland, Munster, Wales and England.

In 2005, Carter helped the All Blacks beat the four Home Nations - England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland - for only the second Grand Slam in their history.

He made a rare start at inside centre on Saturday but reverted to flyhalf in the second period as New Zealand clawed back a five-point half-time deficit with tries from Sitiveni Sivivatu and Richie McCaw.

"It's not the most attractive rugby. It's all about our heart and desire getting us through Test matches," Carter said.

"We're not playing as well as we can and we had to rely on that real grit to get ourselves through the second half.

"We'll go away and think hard on that. I think we're a lot better side than that, we've got some great skills but we're not using as many touches as we'd like to. Hopefully things will improve from here."

Carter said it was satisfying to start the tour with a win after a difficult build-up with little time for training.

"We had limited preparation coming into this," he said. "We had a lot of new faces and it has been a reasonably difficult week, but to come through that and win is very satisfying.

"It sets us up well for this tour. Hopefully we can keep progressing as the tour goes on. It's been a good week and we'll look to next week now."

The victory seals a 3-1 Bledisloe Cup series win for the All Blacks after earlier successes in Auckland and Brisbane.

They will leave for Europe without hooker Andrew Hore, who has been ruled out with an ankle injury picked up in the opening minutes on Saturday.

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