All Blacks grind out testy win for cup
It was never going to be a thing of beauty.
A wet Westpac Stadium and a wounded Wallabies side against an All Blacks one fighting a natural desire to have points come easily, all contributed to a slightly unsatisfying spectacle on Saturday night.
New Zealand were good when they needed to be, though, with an Israel Dagg brace and other tries to Julian Savea and Sam Cane securing them a 29-9 win and another year as Bledisloe Cup holders.
Australia might not have come to play, but they were definitely vigorous and made it a far different assignment for the All Blacks than the previous Saturday’s 42-8 romp in Sydney.
‘‘That was right up there. Massive lift in intensity and we had to work bloody hard for a result tonight. It was a good, hard, physical test match,’’ New Zealand
hooker Dane Coles said afterwards.
Coles is a bloke who isn’t shy of a shove or a put-down at the best of times, so it was no surprise to see him revel in the confrontational circumstances.
‘‘Nothing wrong with a bit of edge in a game. Enjoyed it,’’ said Coles.
‘‘We just wanted to play footy and they brought that kind of edge, but we weren’t going to back down I suppose.
‘‘The first 20 [minutes] there was a bit of pushing and probably both teams wanted to play a bit of footy, but both [sets of] boys were pretty fired up and wanted to get in to each other.
‘‘It probably carried on a little bit too much, to be honest, but we got there in the end. Just took a bit of time.’’
Dagg’s two first-half tries were both beautifully executed, featuring fine lead-up work and excellent finishing, as the All
Blacks took a halftime.
They’d been more dominant than that, without quite turning it into points.
New Zealand’s ascendancy was built around set pieces. They stole or disrupted a lot of lineout ball and held sway in the scrum.
A few of those went down or were a mess, prompting a bit of whistle from referee Romain Poite.
Coles felt the All Blacks’ next opponents - Argentina and South
15-9 lead into Africa - might look to milk penalties there, even if captain Kieran Read didn’t believe the scrum under pressure was New Zealand’s.
‘‘If you look at our ball, generally it was fine,’’ Read said.
The issues appeared to come when Australia was putting the ball in and was among the reasons they were never able to launch any real attacks.
Having seen that playing running rugby was difficult, All Blacks first five-eighth Beauden Barrett played more of a highpercentage territory game, which led to the Savea and Cane tries.
It was another good outing for Hurricanes star Barrett, who’s doing a fine job of steering the team around.
‘‘He might be the driver, but he needs a few driving instructors as well.
‘‘One set of eyes can’t see everything, there’s got to be 15 people looking to help drive the game,’’ was how head coach Steve Hansen described it.