The All Blacks took the outright lead in the Rugby Championship yesterday when they comprehensively beat South Africa 29-15 in a bitter contest between the heavyweights of world rugby.
In a match marred by a red card for Springbok hooker Bismarck du Plessis, the All Blacks also picked up a bonus point with their overwhelming victory over the previously unbeaten South Africa.
The All Blacks finished with only 13 men after two yellow cards in the final 10 minutes, when captain Kieran Read was dismissed for a lineout foul and Ma’a Nonu was sent from the field for a shoulder charge.
The Springboks came to New Zealand confident they could shatter their Eden Park hoodoo, where they have not won since 1937.
Instead they were outplayed by pace on attack and the staunch defense by the All Blacks, who scored four tries to the visitors’ two.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said Du Plessis may have been “unlucky” with his first yellow card, but overall he had no complaints about the refereeing.
“In an intense battle like that you are going to get moments,” he said. “You don’t like seeing it, but it happens and you pay the price for being ill-disciplined. We paid it twice.”
Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer refused to blame the cards for the loss and said he had no excuses.
“The ref is always right,” he said. “If you start making excuses for your team, then they start to make excuses. There were a lot of things that weren’t good enough, even when we had 15 men on the field.”
The intensely physical battle erupted into an all-out brawl in the 15th minute when All Blacks playmaker Dan Carter was bowled in a shoulder charge by Du Plessis.
It took referee Romain Poite a full minute to restore order and when the dust settled, the injured Carter was out of the game and Du Plessis received 10 minutes in the sin-bin.
Du Plessis received his second yellow, and subsequent red card, in the first minute of the second half when he elbowed Liam Messam in the throat.
In between the cards, the All Blacks lost fullback Israel Dagg with an ankle injury and Sam Cane spent 20 minutes receiving medical treatment for a head wound.
When Carter went down the All Blacks led 7-3 and by the time Du Plessis returned to the field they were 14-3 ahead and on their way to extending their unbeaten run at Eden Park to 32 (31 wins, one draw) dating back to 1994.
The All Blacks also overtook France for the most Test wins, moving to 383, and extended their records for the most Test points (13,242) and most Test tries (1,726).
The All Blacks kicked off with the breeze behind them and punished South Africa early when Nonu latched on to a misdirected Bryan Habana clearing kick.
The All Blacks center’s return kick forced a lineout in the corner from where Read drove over for his first try.
Morne Steyn landed a penalty for the Springboks before the punch up, then when the All Blacks had a one-man advantage they struck again with their second try.
Replacement fly-half Beauden Barrett carved through the Springboks backline on a 55m run and lock Brodie Retallick finished off the move when he crashed over by the posts.
Du Plessis returned to the field to briefly restore his place in South Africa’s good books when he scored from a lineout drive.
Steyn kicked the conversion and Barrett landed a penalty for the All Blacks, who took a 17-10 lead into the break.
The second half had barely started when Du Plessis was sent from the field and when the All Blacks went a player up, they immediately struck again.
Read crossed for his second try when he stormed through an attempted tackle by Jannie du Plessis, Bismarck’s brother, and Barrett’s conversion lifted the All Blacks to 24-10.
Cane scored the bonus-point try in the 67th minute, before South Africa came back with a late try to replacement back Pat Lambie.
WALLABIES 14, PUMAS 13
AFP, PERTH, Australia
Australia clung on to snap a four-Test losing streak with an unimpressive 14-13 victory over Argentina in their Rugby Championship Test at Patersons Stadium yesterday.
In wet and windy conditions that made slick ball-handling difficult, the Wallabies led 14-3 at halftime, but failed to score after 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
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
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier