{"id":10303,"date":"2013-09-14T14:59:07","date_gmt":"2013-09-14T14:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10303"},"modified":"2013-09-14T15:00:26","modified_gmt":"2013-09-14T15:00:26","slug":"rugby-all-blacks-crush-springboks-in-controversial-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10303","title":{"rendered":"Rugby: All Blacks crush Springboks in controversial test"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brodie<\/a>
Brodie Retallick is congratulated on his try by All Blacks teammate Liam Messam. Picture: Phil Walter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The All Blacks took the outright lead in the Rugby Championship here Saturday when they comprehensively beat South Africa 29-15 in a bitter contest between the heavyweights of world rugby.<\/p>\n

In a match marred by a red card for Springboks hooker Bismarck du Plessis, the All Blacks also picked up a bonus point with their overwhelming victory over the previously unbeaten South Africans.<\/p>\n

The All Blacks finished with only 13-men with 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.<\/p>\n

The Springboks came to New Zealand confident they could shatter their Eden Park hoodoo, where they have not won since 1937.<\/p>\n

Instead they were outplayed by pace on attack and the staunch defence by the All Blacks who scored four tries to the visitors’ two.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“In an intense battle like that your going to get moments,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You don’t like seeing it but it happens and you pay the price for being ill disciplined. We paid it twice.”<\/p>\n

The Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer refused to blame the cards for the loss and said he had no excuses.<\/p>\n

“The ref is always right,” he said.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

The intensely physical battle erupted into an all-in brawl in the 15th minute when All Blacks playmaker Dan Carter was bowled in a shoulder charge by du Plessis.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The All Blacks also overtook France for the most Test wins, moving to 383, and also extended their records for the most test points (13,242) and most Test tries (1,726).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The All Blacks centre’s return kick forced a lineout in the corner from where Read drove over for his first try.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Replacement fly-half Beauden Barrett carved through the Springboks backline on a 55-metre run and lock Brodie Retallick finished off the move when he crashed over by the posts.<\/p>\n

Du Plessis returned to the field to briefly restore his place in the South African good books when he scored from a lineout drive.<\/p>\n

Steyn kicked the conversion and Barrett landed a penalty for the All Blacks who took a 17-10 lead into the break.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Read crossed for his second try when he stormed through an attempted tackle by Janie du Plessis, Bismarck’s brother, and Barrett’s conversion lifted the All Blacks to 24-10.<\/p>\n

Cane scored the bonus point try in the 67th minute before South Africa came back with a late try to replacement back Pat Lambie. – AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The All Blacks took the outright lead in the Rugby Championship here Saturday 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 Springboks hooker Bismarck du Plessis, the All Blacks also picked up a bonus point with their … Continue reading “Rugby: All Blacks crush Springboks in controversial test”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,700],"tags":[1487,6177,6175,1485,6178,6180,6179,1190,1191,6176],"class_list":["post-10303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sport-news","tag-all-blacks","tag-bismarck-du-plessis","tag-eden-park","tag-heyneke-meyer","tag-kieran-read","tag-pat-lambie","tag-romain-poite","tag-rugby","tag-springboks","tag-steve-hansen"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/all-blacks-celebrate.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10306,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10303\/revisions\/10306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}