Match details
Scoring 3-0 Halfpenny pen; 3-5 Naholo try, 3-7 Barrett con; 6-7 Halfpenny pen; 6-12 Naholo try; 11-12 S Williams try, 11-17 Lienert-brown try 11-19 Barrett con; 11-24 Ioane try, 11-26 Barrett con;16-26 Davies try, 18-26 Halfpenny con; 18-31 Ioane try, 18-33 Barrett con.
Wales L Halfpenny; H Amos,
S Williams (J Roberts 58), O Williams, S Evans; D Biggar (R Priestland 64), R Webb (G Davies 9); R Evans
(W Jones 58), K Owens (K Dacey 76), T Francis(l Brown 76), J Ball (C Hill 19), A W Jones (capt), A Shingler (J Tipruic 71) J Navidi, T Faletau.
New Zealand D Mckenzie; W Naholo (L Sopoaga 71), R Crotty (A Lienertbrown 19), S B Williams, R Ioane; B Barrett, A Smith (TJ Perenara 64); K Hames (W Crockett 60), C Taylor (N Harris 71), N Laulala (O Tu’ungafasi 41), P Tuipulotu (S Barrett 41), S Whitelock (capt), L Squire, S Cane, L Whitelock (M Todd 41).
Referee Wayne Barnes (England). beaten South Africa three times in a row”. And neither will this Wales, even if they do prevail. Gatland has plainly forgotten the World Cup defeat in between the home successes. It does not matter, however, as no Wales side has ever beaten South Africa twice in a row either.
That says plenty about the struggles Wales have encountered in putting away the southern-hemisphere giants over the generations. Of course, none of this trio has proved any more troublesome than New Zealand and, as epic as this tussle was, it also summed up the six decades of Welsh inferiority.
Wales dominated possession and territory and undoubtedly created enough opportunities to record one of the nation’s most famous triumphs. Except it was the two All Black wings who staged the masterclass on how to finish. Rieko Ioane and Waisake Naholo scored two tries apiece, with the former taking the headlines as a 20-year-old with frightening potential.
Gatland signified this pair’s contribution as “the difference between these two teams” and lamented the absence of Jonathan Davies and George North. But Steve Hansen, his opposite number, was missing nine first-teamers at the end of a brutal campaign. There could be no excuses.
Instead, there are the usual “positives to be taken” and although this will have a depressive ring to the Welsh faithful, to be fair to Gatland, he did warn that there would be a certain experimental feel to this autumn as he moved to a more expansive game plan.
“We have spoken about developing players and exposing players to this level for the next two years as we build for the World Cup, and we feel that we are doing that,” Gatland said. “We need to learn from the first three weeks we have been together and continue to improve, and hopefully we can come away with a good result next week.”