The All Blacks give us their opinion on our "New Zealand by less than 10" prediction!
If you’re going to call it wrong, you might as well do it in spectacular fashion and my prediction of New Zealand by less than ten was as well off the mark as the Boks tackling as the All Blacks dominated the second half in clinical fashion to pull clear after a spirited, but hardly resolute, first half performance from the Boks.
New Zealand wings Zac Guildford and the “nearly Ulster player” Cory Jane scored two a piece with prop Wyatt Crockett and replacement out half Colin Slade adding one each in the six try romp. South Africa’s John Smit dotted down, for the second week running, in reply for the Boks.
Ulster’s Ruan Pienaar started off at scrum half and again had a competent enough game behind a beaten pack. He was however switched to full back for the woeful Morne Steyn with New Zealand leading 33 – 7 at the time. More worryingly Ulster’s New Zealand prop John Afoa only lasted six minutes appearing to suffer a fracture to his face after only one scrum. No further details are available at the mo!
South Africa have been truly disappointing over these two games gifting first Australia and then New Zealand two quick scores in the opening quarter. With most of the pundits calling a 30 point win for the All Blacks as soon as the teams were announced there was little learned with respect to World Cup prospects from the first two series openers. The next four games in the Tri Nations will give a clearer picture of how the teams stand with the Boks expected to have more substantial resources at their disposal when they return to home soil.
We did get a glimpse of the refereeing standards as Rolland completed a competent enough performance with the whistle, picking up on most of the All Blacks shenanigans. He did however miss a blatant steal from McCaw to deny South Africa a scoring chance towards the end of the first half.
Roll on next weeks match between New Zealand and Australia with both teams committed to putting out first choice fifteens.
You can read comprehensive match report and stats over on the excellent scrum.com here.
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9 Responses to “Tri Nations: New Zealand 40 South Africa 7”
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When i read your preview I wondered if you had watched last weeks game against Australia South Africa were like a sieve in mid field not much change this week other than the ABs didn’t really attempt to run through the mid field just swamped it with players committed the defence with the passer taking out the defender and the gaps opened before them.
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Not the best of games for the Boks
Ulster can be happy with Cory Jane’s performance – he looked sharp.
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Unfortunately we wont be getting Cory Jane – deal fell through and we picked up Jared Payne instead.
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ooops, forgot that one. And I did read the arti about Payne not making NZ side.
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Ruan can do much better and hence I am a bit disappointed with his performance, but all in all the Boks didn’t look like gelled team.
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Wasn’t expecting the Boks to win, but gosh I was disappointed with their effort!
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Basically it was a Boks second steam and they played like it half paced forwards and a non existent defence in the backs.
The wolfhounds could have given that Boks team a game a game. The worry for the Boks is that they do not appear to have a great depth to their squad this time round.
And while the ABs looked good I fear the opposition was such that how good is an unanswered question.
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4 years ago Bok Bteam also got beaten badly in away leg of 3Ns. Somehow though I am less positive this time round (judging more by Super rugby performances).
I think this weekend’s game – ABs vs Wallabies may be more exciting.
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Yep looking forward to that one myself – the real tri nations kicks off this weekend after the two practice matches.
The boks will be a different animal when they get back home.
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