All Blacks vs. Springboks

The Southern Hemisphere rugby competition, known as The Rugby Championship, is now well underway. New Zealand drew and beat Australia over two successive weeks to retain the Bledisloe Cup. The draw was the All Blacks' first not-a-win in 18 games, and stopped them from breaking the world record for successive wins. They're still unbeaten in 20 games, and are chasing a record last set in 1990 of 23 unbeaten games.

Last week they defeated the Pumas 28-9 in a rain-sodden game in Napier, and this week they faced the Springboks. This was always going to be a tough match, and the weather forecast was for more rain. We had seats in the covered section, although with Wellington wind and rain, "covered" is really a moot point as the rain often comes in horizontally - which section is "covered" is dependent on the wind direction. Thankfully, after some drizzle to begin with, the rain held off until much later in the night.

As expected, this was a tough match, and the Springboks successfully prevented the All Blacks from playing their preferred fast-moving running game. They were solid in defence as well, and there was really no way for the backs to break through the defensive line, despite repeated attempts. At half-time the All Blacks were tryless, and trailing the one try scored by the Springboks, at 7 points to 6.

In the second half, a cross-field kick from Aaron Cruden managed to break the Springbok defence, and captain Richie McCaw was in position to receive the final pass and score in the corner. After the inevitable TMO check the try was awarded.

Richie runs in the try

A further drop-goal from the Springboks, and a Beauden Barrett penalty in the 66th minute were the only other scores. At one point it looked like Barrett had broken free of the defensive line, but play was called back for an earlier infringement, so he had no opportunity to show his blistering pace. The game ended at 14-10 to the All Blacks.

The All Blacks have now played all their home games and are top of the Championship table. They now go on tour to play their remaining games in South Africa and Argentina.