All Blacks too strong for Wallabies
Print Edition
Winger Ben Smith scored a hat-trick as New Zealand opened its Rugby Championship title defense with a six-try 47-29 win over Australia yesterday to ruin Ewen McKenzie’s first match as Wallabies coach.
The Kiwis scored three tries either side of halftime at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney with flyhalf Aaron Cruden, captain Richie McCaw and center Conrad Smith supplementing Ben Smith’s triple score.
Scrumhalf Will Genia and James O’Connor scored what were ultimately consolation tries for the home side with Christian Leali’ifano remaining flawless in international rugby with seven kicks from seven attempts for 19 points with his boot.
As well as giving the All Blacks a bonus point in the Rugby Championship, the victory means Australia must win both the return in Wellington next week and a third test in Dunedin in October to win back the Bledisloe Cup for the first time since 2003. That looks highly unlikely given the gulf in class between the sides on this showing with the All Blacks ruthlessly exploiting almost every opportunity they received.
McKenzie will be disappointed that his team failed to build any real momentum in attack and looked disjointed in defense as the excellent Cruden continually changed the point of attack. There was plenty of optimism among the Wallabies fans in the 68,765 crowd at kickoff with a new coach and a host of fresh faces, including five uncapped players, in the matchday squad.
The hard reality of test rugby hit home after just three minutes, however, when Ben Smith crashed over in the corner for the first All Blacks try.
Pouncing on a Stephen Moore knock on, the New Zealanders charged to the home try line and Aaron Smith fed quick ball to Cruden who took a tackle before finding his winger, whose marker James O’Connor had moved inside, to touch down.
Australia inched back into the match on the back of three Leali’ifano penalties against one from Cruden and the Wallabies centre gave the home side a 12-10 lead with his fourth after 28 minutes. The advantage lasted less than a minute, though.
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