New Zealand coach Ian Foster likes the improvement that he saw in the All Blacks in routing the US, but knows an upcoming four-week European tour is a much greater challenge.
The All Blacks on Saturday humbled the Eagles 104-14 in Washington to begin a stretch of five matches in as many weeks that continues on Saturday at Wales, with stops to follow in Italy, Ireland and France.
The Kiwis were coming off a loss to South Africa three weeks ago in Australia, which denied them an unbeaten run in the Rugby Championship.
Photo: AFP
“We went into the game with some specific targets,” Foster said. “There were clearly one or two things we wanted to work on. I felt our handling, our support, some of our passing, went up a step from the Rugby Championship.”
Foster said he was pleased with young talent that received a long look in the lopsided rout and, without naming names, indicated that three or four players had made a case for inclusion on the field in Europe.
“There were some players who showed they wanted to play,” he said.
Foster said he was unhappy at some of the high-risk passes that worked their way into the All Blacks attack as the score become more lopsided.
“A brief looseness crept into our game,” Foster said. “Looks like we watched too much NBA this week.”
“As the result got sorted early, we got the desire to express ourselves,” he said. “Overall, we showed enough composure. There were enough clips for the review to make it exciting.”
All Blacks fullback Damian McKenzie, who managed one of New Zealand’s 16 tries, said the victory would bring a boost, even though players realize tougher opposition awaits in Europe.
“We showed some really great rugby over the 80 minutes,” he said.
“Moving forward, we will be meeting some really tough opposition,” McKenzie said. “It’s great to put a performance like this out there. We know we have got to keep getting better. We have got plenty of things to keep working on, but it gives us a lot of confidence.”
Among the newcomers was reserve Josh Lord, who made his All Blacks debut in a match at an NFL stadium with US fans tailgating in the parking lot and screaming loudly for the outmatched Americans.
“It was pretty surreal,” he said. “I’ve never played in an atmosphere like that before. It was a great opportunity.”
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