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All Blacks retain Bledisloe Cup after holding off fast-finishing Wallabies
By AAP
The All Blacks have secured the Bledisloe Cup for a 23rd straight year after denying the gallant Wallabies 31-28 in the opening trans-Tasman Test in Sydney.
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After racing out to a 21-0 lead inside 15 minutes on Saturday, New Zealand had to withstand a fierce fightback from the Wallabies to retain the prized piece of silverware.
The victory will also almost certainly consign Australia to the Rugby Championship wooden spoon following four defeats from five matches thus far.
Coach Joe Schmidt will be pleased with the grit of his side but no doubt furious with the early non-existent defence at Accor Stadium.
The 21-point head start left the Wallabies playing catch up all afternoon and not even mighty performances from flanker Fraser McReight and No.8 Rob Valetini could save Australia from an eighth consecutive loss to their trans-Tasman rivals.
The All Blacks suffered a pre-match blow with star fullback Beauden Barrett ruled out with illness.
But his scratching made little difference, with Will Jordan switching from the wing to fullback and storming through the middle after just 90 seconds to open the scoring.
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Their own worst enemies making mistake after mistake, the Wallabies couldn’t contain their rivals early with Rieko Ioane and Caleb Clarke also cashing on the flimsy Australian defence.
Down 21-0, the Wallabies had to score next and did when McReight collected an inside ball from Nic White from a set-piece lineout play to run away and score.
Alas, Sevu Reece – the late in on the wing for the All Blacks – swooped on a loose pass from Hunter Paisami to put Ardie Savea over for New Zealand’s fourth try to make it 24-7 after 25 minutes.
The Wallabies showed plenty of pluck to stay in the contest and limit the deficit to 14 points at the break after hooker Matt Faessler darted over from the back of a maul and Jordie Barrett had a try disallowed as the halftime siren sounded for an earlier knock-on.
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But the hosts continually shot themselves in the foot.
When McReight pulled off an unlikely 50-22, Australia lost the ensuing lineout.
When Tom Wright made a brilliant 30-metre burst, he had no support.
The game seemed all over when Damien McKenzie slotted a penalty goal early in the second half to kick New Zealand out to a 17-point lead.
When Savea barged his way over, the Wallabies looked to have conceded exactly 101 points in 101 minutes following their 67-27 capitulation last start against Argentina in Santa Fe.
But the TMO ruled Savea was held up, then found a forward pass from McKenzie to deny the All Blacks a third try in 20 minutes.
The reprieve, a Paisami try with 15 minutes remaining and yellow cards for All Blacks backs Anton Lienert-Brown and Clarke gave the Wallabies hope of a famous comeback victory.
Alas, even with 15 on 13 for five minutes and a one-man advantage for 10, the Wallabies couldn’t find the tryline again until Wright went over too little too late.
What the ABs are lacking is standards - poor discipline, pushing low probability passes every time there is a line break, and obviously their fitness.
Almost the same score when Eddie Jones was coach .......
Scott Barrett would be lucky to get a 5 from me. Vaii is head and shoulders above him right now. Reiko was one of our best last night, Jordan and Jordie had very average games. Big DMac fan but he is playing with no confidence and seems afraid to express himself. Ratima and Hoatham next game pls. Wallace is find of the season. Put Ardie to 7 and retire Cane now
RIEKO please! ...and to deny our former captain of a well deserved one hundred Tests would be spiteful of YOU!!!....no sense of occasion BRUISER!
I was at the game, a win is a win, but the second half problems just linger. Overall the players on the field did well, I just never saw the skipper talk to the referee once, not once, we need a new captain who asks the questions and rallies the boys. Barrett’s game has diminished with the weight of captaincy, time for a new leader.
Agree Barrett wrong choice for captain. Should have been Ardie , who should be our 7
Win is a win.... They still building
AB's should've won by 20-30 points except they had multiple inaccurate final plays after tearing apart the Aussies. They just lacked accuracy and composure. However the disallowed try to Jordie Barrett was the wrong call by the TMO - Sevu Reece never knocked on at the previous ruck, he maintained possession the whole time.
Last test against SA TMO couldn't spot a clear dropped ball over the try line, yet in this test they can somehow pick-up an imaginary knock-on to deny a try. It's probably just the Rassie effect.
Great to watch both sides play some attacking rugby at a high tempo where players will naturally make errors due to the intensity. A much better watch than the boring rolling mauls that Rassie keeps throwing up.
An ugly win is still a win...
TJ Perenara's tackle won the match...
Mission accomplished...
Go the All Blacks...Bledisloe Cup retained 21 years on...
We've had kiwi coaches sabotaging us for half the time so it doesn't really count. It's irrelevant. Most of the rest of the time we've had Tah coaches selecting their useless Tah pets. It's not a real contest until we get a real fair dinkum Australian coach.
Two awful teams both trying to gift the game to the other.
Embarrassing.
To be honest, when the wallabies kept rolling forward - the ABs body language was very worrying. I actually joked that it looked like they were trying to lose the game.
I wouldn’t be bold enough to say that Australia deserved to win, but New Zealand deserved to lose. Still unable to score after 60 minutes, still unable to keep 15 men on the pitch. They threw away a 21 point lead. They did enough to thoroughly deserve losing this game. Utterly unprofessional. Couldn’t finish half their scoring chances, infringement after infringement. No doubt all the kiwis will be morning about having to play with a man or two down… well, blame the players,
Blame the coach. Don’t blame the ref. In your hands. Up to you to control it. Don’t whinge about it
No moaning here about the two yellow cards, so there goes your lame comment mate. It was poor discipline.
The era of NZ turning up and figuring how to beat teams on the fly is over. They didn't take Argentina seriously and they lost. They didn't take Australia seriously and they nearly lost. In order to maximize MZs strengths they need to also exploit opponents weaknesses.
They are in an era where the requirement to dominate will be to win many tight matches. They must exploit weaknesses as well as play to their strengths.
The whinging is all in your imagination. When the Bokke missed their half chances it's down to the new Tony Brown attack or rotating players. But for the ABs it's unprofessional and embarrassing? It was a fast start and a scratchy finish, still a win though. Onto the Cake Tin.
The all blacks were pretty pathetic if you ask me. After 20,mins I thought we were looking at 50 or 60 nil. Then they end up scraping the win by 3? Honestly, that’s pathetic. Embarrassing even
Who is pathetic now? Springboks were embarrassing leading 17-0 by the 13 minute mark. Womp womp.
How many times can you say pathetic? You sound like a broken record. Change your tune.
….and 2 yellows for cynical infringements… same old story.. good on the refs for putting up with it.
Another final 20 minutes where the All Blacks didn't score any points. There are some serious issues here.
21 nil up and you win by 3? Against Australia… This all black team is a poor shadow of what they were… in the past they’d have won this game by 60 points. Would not be surprised if they lost in Welington
The ABs tend to lose in wellington these days.
last 20min horror again for the ABs. If the game was 5 min longer... i think they would have lost
also some execution would have gave the ABs 2 or 3 more tries if i remember correctly.
Those two tries should've stood. Absolutely ridiculous interference by the TMO. An imaginary knock-on where the ball never left the player's hand, and an unconvincingly ruled forward pass based on dodgy camera angles... you can't make this up.
No doubt there’ll be noises about the ABS being down to 14/13.
But there shouldn’t be. Because over and above not being able to score in the last 20 - NZ always find themselves down to 14 when under pressure.