Lote Tuqiri scored Australia's only try Saturday against a 14-man New Zealand as the Wallabies held the All Blacks tryless in a 23-18 win to keep the Tri-Nations rugby tournament alive.
Tuqiri crossed the tryline at Sydney's former Olympic stadium in the 48th minute just before New Zealand's Ali Williams returned to the field after a 10-minute spell in the sin bin for being the last in a string of All Blacks caught offside by South African referee Jonathan Kaplan.
All Black captain Tana Umaga conceded his team was caught offside more than Australia, but questioned Kaplan's decision to send off Williams. But New Zealand coach Graham Henry defended the referee.
"I thought he refereed the game pretty well tonight," he said.
Henry also paid tribute to the powerful Wallabies' performance.
"I thought the Australians played particularly well tonight. We were clearly second."
New Zealand had already retained the Bledisloe Cup, which the two rugby rivals play for each year, after its 16-7 victory over the Wallabies in Wellington last month.
But the Australian win kept the Tri-Nations alive as the tournament heads for its final two matches at South Africa. Australia and New Zealand each have two wins in three matches and are level at the top of the standings with nine points.
"We were pretty happy with the effort tonight, but we have one more big effort ahead of us," Wallabies coach Eddie Jones said. Australia takes on South Africa in Durban on Aug. 21.
Possibly the most significant play for New Zealand came from the coach, who replaced a shaken flyhalf Carlos Spencer with veteran Andrew Mehrtens early in the second half after Spencer failed to kick a restart the necessary 10 meters.
New Zealand had the best of the early exchanges with Daniel Carter booting them to a 9-0 lead inside 15 minutes in front of a crowd of 83,418 -- a crowd bigger than last year's Rugby World Cup final won by England over the Wallabies.
Just before Carter's third successful penalty, tensions between the teams boiled over as opposing flyhalves, Stephen Larkham and Spencer wrestled one another over advertising signs lining the pitch.
The brawl that followed the wrestling match ignited the Wallabies, who began to set their electrifying backs running through the All Black line.
The Wallabies looked to be the first to cross for a try when Tuqiri barged over the line after a storming break by Nathan Sharpe, but prop Kees Meeuws' desperate defense prevented him from grounding the ball.
Kaplan called play back for an earlier All Blacks infringement and Matt Burke, on as a temporary replacement for Stirling Mortlock and playing possibly his last home test before leaving for English club Newcastle, kicked the penalty to make it 9-3.
Australian captain George Gregan played in his 101st test to match legend David Campese as Australia's most-capped player.
Carter kicked another penalty just before the half hour to extend New Zealand's lead to 12-3 before the All Blacks again were penalized for offside close to their own line and Matt Giteau's kicking pegged the lead back to six points.
Giteau made it two from two in the 37th minute after another All Black infringement.
With New Zealand down to 14 men in the second half and the scores level at 12-12, Giteau scored his fourth penalty to give Australia the lead for the first time.
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