Impressive All Blacks blow away Wallabies
The All Blacks’ dominance over the Wallabies continued when they claimed a 37-20 win over their trans-Tasman rivals in Yokohama yesterday. Although Australia were aiming to repeat last year’s Bledisloe Cup dead rubber win, New Zealand had other ideas and delivered a dominant display in which they outscored the Wallabies by five tries to two with Beauden Barrett leading the way with a 17-point haul courtesy of a try, three conversions and two penalties.
Australia made a bright start and took the ball through several phases from the kick off with only a desperate tackle from Scott Barrett on Dane Haylett-Petty – which took him into touch at the corner flag – preventing the Wallabies from opening the scoring in the second minute.
Despite that early attack from their opponents, the All Blacks were soon in control of proceedings and 10 minutes later Liam Squire crossed for the opening try after gathering a pass from Sonny Bill Williams inside the Wallabies’ 22.
Beauden Barrett succeeded with the conversion before Kurtley Beale opened Australia’s account in the 21st minute with a penalty from 46 metres out after Williams was blown up for offside play on defence.
Five minutes later, The All Blacks restored their seven-point lead when Barrett added a penalty after the Wallabies’ front-row were penalised for illegal scrummaging.
New Zealand continued to dominate and in the 36th minute Kieran Read scored their second try after selling Will Genia a dummy off the back of a scrum on Australia’s fivemetre line.
Barrett’s conversion meant the world champions held a 17-3 lead but on the stroke of half-time Sefa Naivalu collected a pass from Marika Koroibete before crashing over in the left-hand corner for a deserved try. Foley added the extras and the Wallabies were back in the game with the All Blacks holding a seven-point lead at the interval.
- It’s been a remarkable turnaround for Auckland, who only managed to avoid relegation from the Premiership last year by a single point.
But they are a very different looking side under Ieremia this year and this was a performance like an Auckland side from their halcyon days.
“We’ve been talking about respect for the past two weeks,” Ieremia said afterwards. “For me, personally getting this team to the top of the table with two weeks to go, that was the respect for getting there. There are a lot of teams that probably would have broke under the pressure that the scoreboard had and this was Canterbury.
“But it didn’t faze these boys and they came out firing. To claw our way back and win in extra time, and the way they won, full of energy, they gave everything. “For me as a coach, that’s what I wanted, the boys to die for the jersey and there were a lot of dead bodies there at the end.”
At the start of the final, Auckland never looked like they were going to win this. Canterbury played with energy and were more direct, as they marched out to a 26-12 lead midway through the second half.
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