New Zealand beat Canada 68-6 in their Pool D clash but not before being made to answer some searching first half questions by a brave and busy Canuck performance, a strong second half effort and four tries from winger Malili Muliaina showing the way.
The New Zealanders, with a number of their first line players rested, were caught on the hop early doors by a brave and energetic Canadian side who exploded into the match and made the All Blacks pay for any complacency that had crept in with some strong play although the final touch always seemed to be lacking.
Under the closed Dockland Stadium roof in Melbourne, a number question marks appeared over the ability of the All Black pack to enforce themselves on a game during the first quarter.
The big Canuck forwards managed to gain an early upper hand by forcing the All Blacks off the ball at the break-down and managed to turn over a few useful balls as mistakes began to annoy the All Blacks.
If he had any, John Mitchell would have been pulling out his hair at the amount of unforced areas that his forwards committed in the first half. Yes, their were a few new men in the line-up but that can't excuse some elementary mistakes in the line-out and some hesitant work at the break-downs.
But credit must go this Canadian XV, they had nothing to lose and seized the early initiative by some surprisingly brave play that put the All Blacks on the back foot.
Suddenly the All Blacks knew they were in a game and reverted to basics by opting to kick a go for goal when awarded with a penalty after 10 minutes. The Melbourne crowd showed their discontent that such a talent bunch of runners were going with the "safety-first" option and were happy to see Daniel Carter's effort sail wide.
There are also rumblings concerning the All Blacks kicking ability but that miss, though perhaps Carter's easiest, was one of only his two misses for the day out of 11 attempts at the posts surely suggests that the All Blacks have found their first choice kicker.
How John Mitchell fits him in to his talented backline is another matter altogether.
Despite the mis-fires early on, it was somewhat inevitable that the All Blacks would break the deadlock, and predictably it came courtesy of their flying backs -- but not until the 17th minute of the match.
Carlos Spencer put boot to ball in his 22 after a turn-over, an awkward bounce found Spencer again on the follow up who kicked ahead again and into the path of the flying wing Caleb Ralph who beat the covering defence. Daniel Carter added the conversion to put the All Blacks 7-0 up.
Jared Barker got the Canucks some deserved points with a penalty kick soon after but by now the All Blacks had found their running shoes and it wasn't look before they added another five points.
An impressive break from centre Ma'a Nonu took the All Blacks to the Canadian line but more stout defending held them up. But before the defenders had time to regroup behind their own line, the All Black No.8 Rodney So'oialo picked up from the base of the ruck and stretched through the Canadian defense line to score, Carter added the two points.
With a tight Canuck defence, the All Blacks opted to try and get over them with a series of short chips. One from fullback Leon MacDonald fell into the grateful arms of wing Malili Muliaina who raced away to score for his first try of the day and Carter added a well taken conversion from the touch-line.
It was leg work after that, the next try coming via a Carter inside pass to Spencer who looked up to find the red shirts of Canada had parted and he shot though from the 22 before feeding out a pass out to the supporting So'oialo who raced home from 40 metres to score under the post. The resulting conversion was easy for Carter, and the ref soon blew for halftime.
The All Blacks starting the second looking like men who had just sustain a grilling and looked to extend their lead immediately, but Caleb Ralph was denied an early try after a good Canadian cover tackle took him into the corner flag.
They soon made amends via a lovely switch pass from an inspired reverse flick from lock Brad Thorn wrong-footed the Canucks and sent Muoliana screeching through the gap on a good angle to score. Carter added the conversion.
The wing soon recorded his hat-trick after coming off his wing to receive a pass from Nonu on the half-way; Carter added another fine conversion.
But Canada hadn't giving up and, to the roar of the crowd, went around attempting to punch their way thought the All Black Defense. But their relative inexperience showed as they were unable to string together enough passages to threaten the All Black line and at times outran their support.
But after a short but sustained period of pressure midway through the second-half, Canada were rewarded with three points courtesy of a Barker penalty.
Finally the All Blacks' forwards managed to get on the score-sheet without the help of their backs when a rolling maul at the edge of the Canuck 22 allowed prop Kees Meeuws to break off the back and score a record-braking try -- Meeuws now has more tries than any other prop in International history.
After a great hour the Canadians began to look a little ragged and they were unable to keep up with when the ball was span wide and into the hands of Ralph who shrugged off a weak challenge to score; Carter again with a suburb touch-line conversion.
Muliana soon touched down for his fourth try of the match after the All Blacks spread it wide and the Canucks ran out of cover in the corner, but Carter missed his first conversion of the game.
It was All Zealand for the last 10 minutes, with Nonu soon adding his first Test try for New Zealand after breaking through exhausted tackles and Carter recovered his timing to score the conversion before referee Tony Spreadbury blew for full time.
Man of the match: Not one to agonise over -- with four tries All Black wing Malili Muliaina goes straight to number one in the RWC top try scorers list. But it was not the quantity that impressed, it was the quality -- each relied on good vision, some nice support work and on moving extremely quickly! Muliaina just pips lock Brad Thorn who outdid his fellow forwards by popping up everywhere, even putting in a cheeky reverse pass that opened up the Canuck defence to send Muliaina through to score.
Moment of the Match: Not really a moment -- more the first ten minutes where the Canucks took the game to the startled All Blacks with some surging runs and some great turn-overs. New Zealand really didn't know what had hit them, but unfortunately this time Goliath managed to regain his balance and crush David. Bah!
Villain of the Match: A pretty clean affair to be honest. Lots of big hits from both sides but with New Zealand too busy trying to find first gear in the early stages, and too busy scoring tries in the later part, no time was had for any handbags. So no villains this time -- although I imagine a certain cameraman might beg to differ, the touch-line techie was taken out by a tackle and was lifted from the turf bleeding from the face.
The Teams:
New Zealand: 1 Carl Hoeft, 2 Mark Hammett, 3 Kees Meeuws, 4 Chris Jack, 5 Brad Thorn, 6 Marty Holah, 7 Reuben Thorne (c), 8 Rodney So'oialo, 9 Steve Devine, 10 Carlos Spencer, 11 Mils Muliaina, 12 Daniel Carter, 13 Ma'a Nonu, 14 Caleb Ralph, 15 Leon MacDonald
Reserves: Corey Flynn, Doug Howlett, Richie McCaw, Daniel Braid
Unused: David Hewett, Greg Somerville, Byron Kelleher
Canada: Garth Cooke, 2 Aaron Abrams, 3 Kevin Tkachuk, 4 Jamie Cudmore, 5 Ed Knaggs, 6 Ryan Banks (c), 7 Jim Douglas, 8 Jeff Reid, 9 Ed Fairhurst, 10 Jared Barker, 11 Sean Fauth, 12 John Cannon, 13 Marco Di Girolomo, 14 Matt King, 15 Quentin Fyffe
Reserves: Rod Snow, Adam Van Staveren, Nik Witkowski, Colin Yukes, Ryan Smith
Unused: Mark Lawson, Morgan Williams
Attendance: 38889
Referee: Spreadbury t.
Points Scorers:
New Zealand
Tries: Muliaina M. 4, Nonu M. 1, Ralph C.S. 2, Meeuws K.J. 1, So'oialo R. 2
Conv: Carter D.W. 9
Canada
Pen K.: Barker J. 2
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