England posted their third straight win over Australia while Scotland defeated South Africa for the first time in 33 years on Saturday as the northern hemisphere made further inroads into the world rugby order.
England, victorious over the All Blacks last week, beat Australia 32-31 in a superb match at Twickenham, while the Scots outclassed the Springboks 21-6 at Murrayfield.
PHOTO: REUTERS
However, New Zealand managed to prevent a second successive hat-trick of defeats for the SANZAR nations as they somehow scraped a 20-20 draw with France after a bizarre finale in Paris.
French flyhalf Francois Gelez had an injury-time penalty attempt to win it but, after the ball fell off his kicking tee, he amazingly attempted to run the ball, only to be stopped by the referee who awarded a scrum to New Zealand, leaving his team mates and the crowd stunned.
Gelez then had a chance to make amends with the last kick of the game, a 37m penalty, but sent it narrowly wide.
Wales scrapped to a 32-21 victory over Canada at Cardiff, but Argentina were too strong for Italy as they chalked up a crushing 36-6 success in Rome.
Ireland was to play Fiji in Dublin yesterday.
England started strongly at Twickenham and led 16-6 after 39 minutes.
The world champions blasted back either side of the break, however, with two tries for Elton Flatley and one for winger Wendell Sailor to open a 12-point lead.
Winger Ben Cohen's second try and a faultless display from flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson, who scored 22 points, secured a nail-biting 17th-successive Twickenham win for the hosts.
"This is a big scalp to take, I think that was the best Australia team of the last three years," said England manager Clive Woodward.
Scrumhalf Matt Dawson added: "It's probably the first time I've seen or played in an England side who have come back from two scores down ... showing the ability to play some rugby, not just kick goals but score tries."
Australia coach Eddie Jones, whose team were beaten 18-9 by Ireland last week, said he did not think the current crop of results signified a shift in the game's powerbase.
"It is definitely an advantage to play at home," he said. "There is a fine margin in international rugby, there are six or seven teams that are very good."
England will now attempt to complete the southern hemisphere clean sweep next week against South Africa, who looked badly out of sorts at Murrayfield.
The Springboks made 10 changes from the team thrashed 30-10 by France last week but if anything looked worse as Scotland secured the victory with two second-half tries.
Flanker Budge Pountney was bundled over the line for the first and winger Nikki Walker was gifted the second when replacement center Andre Pretorius, being hounded behind his own tryline, miskicked a clearance straight to the winger.
Brendan Laney chipped in with 11 points while South Africa's points came from two Butch James penalties.
Coach Ian McGeechan described the victory as an historic day for Scottish rugby, their first success against the South Africans since a 6-3 Murrayfield win in 1969.
"It's a very special day because we don't beat South Africa very often" said McGeechan, who led the British and Irish Lions to a series victory over the then-world champions in 1997.
New Zealand spent the whole night living off scraps at the Stade de France as the hosts totally dominated up front and won almost every lineout.
They were not helped by having prop Keith Meeuws, fullback Christian Cullen and center Mark Robinson all sin-binned by Australian referee Scott Young in the 10th, 30th and 40th minutes and fell behind to a try by flanker Olivier Magne.
However, Meeuws burrelled over for the Kiwis after coming back on and Andrew Mehrtens and Gelez kicked five points each to make it 10-10 at the break.
Center Tana Umaga broke clear to put put New Zealand ahead and Mehrtens landed another penalty to make it 20-10.
Nicolas Brusque slid over for a second French try and 21-year-old Gelez levelled the match at 20-20 with a 78th-minute penalty.
However, the 21-year-old will remember only his injury time troubles when he looks back on this match.
Wales could only offer a scrappy win over Canada by way of a farewell to Scott Quinnell, who was to retire after earning his 52nd cap as a replacement yesterday.
Tries from hooker Robin McBryde and center Jamie Robinson plus 22 points from a flawless kicking display by Stephen Jones gave Wales the victory, but it was far from the convincing win they had wanted before facing the All Blacks next week.
Italy, as so often before, took an early 6-0 lead with two Diego Dominguez penalties in Rome, but were then overwhelmed as Argentina hit back strongly with tries by Jose Orengo and Ignacio Corletto to lead 15-6 at the break.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but