The scene was set, last week both the All Blacks and the Wallabies won, which meant they had both played two and won two and today’s game was the showdown, winner take all for The Rugby Championship Final and The Bledisloe Cup. It is a streamlined version of the tournament this year, because of the 2015 World Cup. Sport is a serious affair in New Zealand and Australia, rivalries and passion do not come much bigger than this. The Wallabies though have not won the Bledisloe Cup in 12 years, would today end the streak? The game was being played in Sydney at ANZ stadium and both teams, ideally, would like to keep the momentum going for the upcoming World Cup.
All Blacks and Wallabies – The Rugby Championship Final
To get festivities started, the biggest scrum in the world was formed in the stadium. 1208 people took part and this is now officially the biggest scrum in the world, beating the previous record which took place in Twickenham where 1009 people took part.
Today Richie McCaw equalled Brian O’Driscolls record of playing for his country in 141 test match games, McCaw was captain for 104 of them.
From the kick off the All Blacks made an unnecessary / unforced error, which was a sign of nerves perhaps. A game can be decided by the team that settles first and takes the game to their opponents. The Wallabies were attacking early on and had a good break that had it not been for a forward pass they may well have scored a try.
On the whole it was rather a scrappy start to the game, and most of the first half remained the same. The Wallabies showed their intent from the first scrum with a massive drive. A great individual break by, Milner-Skudder, on his debut, took the All Blacks to within five metres of the Wallabies try line. Subsequent play saw Kepu commiting a professional foul and being sent to the sin bin – Wallabies were happy to take the three point hit from Carters penalty conversion to prevent the potential seven points. NZ 3 – 0 Wal. It took another 10 minutes of scrappy play, mostly All Blacks pushing the Wallabies, before Pocock broke away for the Wallabies and they won a scrum in front of the posts. The Wallabies ended up with a simple penalty, which Giteau converted. NZ 3 – 3 Wal. Moore tackled Smith at the back of the scrum which saw the All Blacks awarded another penalty – Carter booted it up field for touch but in keeping with a number of errors on his part – the ball went over the dead ball line. On the whole the All Blacks kicking and the pressure applied therefrom was outstanding and tactically on the nail . . just a couple of errors crept in to game, from Carter. . Having said that he was the next person to add points, after 29 minutes, through another penalty making it NZ 6 – 3 Wal. Two minutes later Wallabies penalty hit the right hand upright and bounced back into play. Wallabies mounted a good attack through Folau which broke down with a knock on . . .Wallabies were starting to get into the game more. All Blacks had held the upper hand in the first half and had the Wallabies defence not stood firm the All Blacks would surely have scored.
The second half started with an error from the kick off as Carter failed to make 10 metres. Shortly afterwards Wallabies from attacking play a high tackle by Aaron Smith saw him sent to the sin bin. Scrum half is a difficult position to cover. Kepu (our previous sin bin man) cut through the All Blacks defence and scored to make the score NZ 6 – 10.
McCaw made a good break, and Wallabies desperate defence saw them infringing and going off-side (penalty) which was converted NZ 9 – 10 Wal. Some end to end stuff, as Phipps was sent to sin bin and then NZ made the man advantage work for them with some sublime back line interplay / movement which saw Ben Smith with a long looping pass out to set Milner-Skudder up for an All Blacks try in the right hand corner, which was not converted – NZ 14 – 10 Wal.
Replacenment fly-half Tooma set Ashley-Cooper up for a Wallabies try – converted Nz 14 – 17 Wal (Wallabies take the lead). Then Another brilliant try by Milner-Skudder had three Wallabies defenders hanging onto him when he crossed the line, four by the time he manged to ground the ball. The conversion was again missed to make the scoring NZ 19 – 17 Wal and the All Blacks wer back in lead.
Another substitute Nic White had an impact when he slotted a Wallabies penalty from 40+ m out – this changed the lead again NZ 19 – 20 Wal. Not long thereafter Nic White powered between the All Blacks defence and went over for a try which he converted NZ 19 – 27 Wal and it was now less than 10 minutes to go and it was looking like the Wallabies might pull it off.
At 75 minutes, a NZ penalty which was kicked into touch. A line out, 5 metres out and the All Blacks fumbled the ball and knocked on which put paid to any chances they might have had . The home crowd erupted with the final whistle and the Wallabies ran out deserved victors.
The All Blacks looked bloodied, injured and defeated. They lost the four nations championship but still have the Bledisloe second leg – the All Blacks will be out for revenge – of that I am sure.
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