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Watch: Aumua produces two stunning assists including offload of the year candidate

(Source/Sky Sport NZ)

Tasman Mako centre Levi Aumua has produced two incredible try assists in the space of three minutes but it wasn’t enough to prevent Auckland from taking a tight 30-27 victory at Eden Park.

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After All Black midfielder Roger Tuivasa-Sheck scored one of two opening tries for Auckland, Tasman found themselves down 14-3 nearly half an hour into the clash and in desperate need of some points.

Former Blues and current Moana Pasifika centre Levi Aumua stepped up to produce two magic plays for the Mako, the first of which might go down as the offload of the season.

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Attacking the left side, Aumua was at risk of going into touch as four Auckland defenders tried to tackle him over the sideline.

The Mako No 13 threw a ‘hail mary’ offload around his back to keep the play alive which miraculously found it’s way into the hands of No 8 Sione Havili.

The Auckland defence thought the ball had gone into touch only to find out that Havili had the ball. The loose forward powered over the last defender, halfback Taufa Funaki, to score in the corner.

Just moments later Aumua produced another spectacular play to set up his left wing Macca Springer on a brilliant kick return.

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Fielding a chip kick around halfway, Aumua picked up the bouncing ball and set off in the opposite direction past the Auckland kick chase.

Once again No 9 Funaki found himself trying to make the cover tackle and was promptly discarded by a power handoff by the Tasman centre. Springer received the last pass once Aumua took care of fullback Salesi Rayasi.

The explosive passage of play got Tasman back into the lead at 15-14 at halftime and they extended that shortly after the break after a crossfield kick to Highlanders wing Fetuli Paea.

When Springer grabbed his double in the 63rd minute to put the visitors up 27-20 it looked over for Auckland, but the boot of Harry Plummer kept them within touching distance.

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His third penalty of the afternoon closed the gap to 27-23 and former Blues flanker Blake Gibson produced the game-winning try minutes from full time by barging over from close range.

Auckland’s fifth win of the season kept them at second place in the conference, while Tasman slipped to 3-5 and down to fourth place.

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Flankly 2 hours ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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