Two tries: Julian Savea
Related links
Teams
Also see
New Zealand clinched the inaugural Rugby Championship title with a round to spare on Saturday with a 54-15 win over Argentina in La Plata.
The All Blacks produced their best performance of the year to demolish los Pumas, scoring seven tries including a hat-trick for Cory Jane and two for his fellow wing Julian Savea.
Centre Ma'a Nonu and scrum-half Aaron Smith also got their names on the scorecard to complete the rout.
The result sees the All Blacks extend their winning streak to 15 games ahead of next weekend's showdown with the Springboks in Johannesburg.
The world champions were given a scare early on as the hosts started in the best possible fashion by taking a 5-0 lead thanks to a wonderful try from scrum-half Martin Landajo.
But it didn't take long for New Zealand to strike back and once the visitors had found their rhythm, it was one-way traffic for the rest of the game and the men in black raced to a 32-8 lead by half-time.
Argentina were not allowed to get away with their customary spoiling tactics at the breakdown by referee Jaco Peyper, and with quick ball at their disposal, the All Black backs were at their devastating best.
The hosts tried to adopt a much more open style than we've seen in the past but while they produced two very good tries, they were unable to match the Kiwis at what they do best - moving the ball into space at pace.
The locals were looking good after Landajo's opening score from a well-worked first-phase backline move that saw full-back Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino burst through on halfway.
But the Argentine defence was nowhere to be seen when Nonu escaped from the fringe of a ruck to put Smith over in the 17th minute.
A few minutes later Read strolled through to set up Jane in the corner, Savea chased down his own chip ahead for his first try and then bagged another on the stroke of half-time.
Although Gonzalo Camacho shrugged off Andrew Hore to score after the interval, the All Blacks killed the game off as Savea manhandled two defenders to set up Jane's second.
Dan Carter kicked five from seven before being taken off along with Richie McCaw on the hour mark. But it didn't stop the points from flowing as replacement Aaron Cruden broke the line with his first touch and set up Nonu for an easy try.
Jane clinched his hat-trick with a 50m intercept with the last play of the game.
Man of the Match It's hard not to give the gong to one of the backs since they scored all the points. Richie McCaw deserves a mention but Kieran Read was phenomenal and had a direct hand in creating at least two of the tries for the flash boys out wide.
Moment of the match: There were a number of excellent tries - with Landajo's score a highlight - but Cory Jane's first try, thanks to a brilliant offload from Read, was out of the top drawer. It put the All Blacks 10 points up and they never looked back.
Villian of the match: No bad guys to be seen.
The scorers:
For Argentina:
Tries: Landajo, Camacho
Con: Hernandez
Pens: Hernandez
For New Zealand:
Tries: A. Smith, Jane 3, Savea 2, Nonu
Cons: Carter 3, Cruden 2
Pens: Carter 2, Cruden
Argentina: 15 Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino, 14 Gonzalo Camacho, 13 Marcelo Bosch, 12 Santiago Fernandez, 11 Horacio Agulla, 10 Juan Martin Hernandez, 9 Martin Landajo, 8 Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe (c), 7 Juan Manuel Leguizamon, 6 Julio Farias Cabello, 5 Patricio Albacete, 4 Manuel Carizza, 3 Juan Figallo, 2 Eusebio Guinazu, 1 Rodrigo Roncero.
Replacements: 16 Agustin Creevy, 17 Marcos Ayerza, 18 Tomas Vallejos, 19 Tomas Leonardi, 20 Nicolas Vergallo, 21 Martin Rodriguez, 22 Juan Imhoff.
New Zealand: 15 Israel Dagg, 14 Cory Jane, 13 Conrad Smith, 12 Ma'a Nonu, 11 Julian Savea, 10 Daniel Carter, 9 Aaron Smith, 8 Kieran Read, 7 Richie McCaw (c), 6 Liam Messam, 5 Sam Whitelock, 4 Luke Romano, 3 Owen Franks, 2 Andrew Hore, 1 Tony Woodcock.
Replacements: 16 Keven Mealamu, 17 Charlie Faumuina, 18 Brodie Retallick, 19 Sam Cane, 20 Piri Weepu, 21 Aaron Cruden, 22 Ben Smith.
Venue: Estadio Único Ciudad de La Plata
Referee: Jaco Peyper (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Craig Joubert (South Africa), Pascal Gauzere (France)
Television match official: Francisco Pastrana
Comments
new_j4a says...
@Toulousain, next you be bringing in the unfair affect of the Argentinian inferiority complex resulting from the whacking that an English speaking country had to administer over the "rightfully reclaimed islands?" Give us all a break. You sound like a washed up French sociology major with "empty nest" syndrome and too much time on her hands. Can you not go and find some orphans to take care of....teach your particular brand of victim rugby to? If we have to put up with you after every Rugby Championship match, we'll all start to wish we'd gone to the Pacific Islands to extend the SH tournament.
Posted 08:33 04th October 2012
new_j4a says...
@TVaddict ...and sorry that I took so long to acknowledge, but I was away.
@all...and what a cat fight I seemed to have missed....something between a pub brawl and woman's hour...the skirmishes taking us back to that tired old RWC11 final and ignorant claims of French victimization, lots of woeful hand wringing "I am a victim" from the losing side or at least their supporters, with a liberal dash of name dropping, invitations to defy nature and try childbirth from the contestant whose only credentials seem to be a fairly sharp wit, a misunderstanding of wikipedia's descriptions of schools of philosophical thought, and having produced the fruit of a liaison with an Argentinian rugby administrator who she claims played rugby at the highest level....well relatively high, that is for France the semi committed near do wells and Toulouse who have continually bought washed up players and provided her with a stream of prattle as she served them coffee and whatever else a 60-ish French woman dishes out for desert.
I find myself intrigued by the question: Has she actually played herself...or reffed. I must say that she does seem to have the balls for it...feisty as an alley cat.
Posted 07:19 04th October 2012
new_j4a says...
@TVaddict says..."I believe a forward pass is relative to the player is it not?" Yes, correct, nothing to do with the ground. There is a great video from the IRB here for those that still don't get it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=box08lq9ylg
Posted 06:54 04th October 2012
Toulousain says...
...and i haven't even touched on the language barrier...
imagine the game reffed in spanish, if you can. imagine the shrugged shoulders and bewildered expressions of the ABs. imagine how much more DOUBT they wld have. every ruck. every tackle. questioning every decision. momentary hesitation. they wld indeed be a quite different team.
(pls recognise, this is not an excuse - just an observation!!)
peace :-)
Posted 20:00 03rd October 2012
Toulousain says...
..cont...
G Henry and the pumas staff have spent enormous time on this aspect of learning and communicating with the ref. they were v disappointed with the first RC game. they felt walsh was not understanding them, being patronising, etc. their response was to make an even bigger effort during the game to "show" him they were obeying the rules. in a game of millimetres, taking time to visibly "obey" concedes the gain line, or the contact, and hence the game. as we know SA won easily.
this experience was repeated vs ABs last weekend. f-lobbe makes a good attempt to contest the ball at the first tackle on c smith at 0.33mins. he is penalised and tries to talk to the ref. look at 13.37 and the visible effort f-lobbe makes to NOT wrap himself around the ball at ABs lineout drive. compare if you will to mccaw at 42.28. the "flow" is quite different.
the early lessons of what the ref was going to allow or not are interesting too...
2.43 pen to pumas (jane infront of kick)
4.22 pen adv to pumas (mccaw lazy runner)
5.16 a smith tackles player in air (no pen)
9.48 pen to pumas + extra 10m walk-back for dissent from ABs
12.41 read knock-on not picked leading to 12.47 pen against pumas (v questionable but carter talks the ref into it!)
hence lobbe's actions at lineout 13.37
this state of hesitation in the pumas leads to the confusing ruck at 15.00. several potential interpretations here. taking out half back (which is what ref picks). but arriving pumas player has hands on ball? also, whitelock clearly on floor playing ball and creating space for Nonu's break. most of the pumas just stop playing.
anyhow. i'm certain to have bored you now.
but you see the point. if you create uncertainty in your opponent's mind at the contact area, you buy a split second. ABs backline does the rest!!
Posted 19:17 03rd October 2012
Toulousain says...
kiwidiver, thanks for coming back to the page (metaphorically and literally). i'm sorry i was overly harsh earlier. the insults were flying from every corner. now the dust has settled, we can be in a more "editorial" or considered mode. the adrenaline of the newsroom (so-to-speak) has long passed, along with most of the short-tempered and quick-to-judge crowd.
my point re 0.0001% of the pop was meant as a compliment to the silent majority of nz fans. by definition, these sites air the views of a minority who are either 1) passionate and nerdy like myself, or 2) passionate and aggressive with various degrees of anger management issues (shall we say). my mistake was to be too aggressive/direct at first. my intention was to shake off the trolls. but instead i just appeared as one myself. and i provoked some otherwise very decent people like sandal and yourself. apologies again.
from every real-life discussion i have had with nzers about rugby, and virtually every nz player i have met, i form the opinion that you are passionate, informed, respectful and proud. i fear it is just the internet that creates the craziness and the background noise.
re the pumas, of course you are right. one could easily dissect the tape to highlight their errors. i shall take your advice and tread more carefully next time....and be more even-handed from the outset.
re the ref/human thing. at the risk of boring you (a risk i have been prepared to take on these pages so far!), it is very difficult to analyse or quantify beyond an emotional feeling. all fans "feel" it. but analysts cannot scientifically measure it. people say that refs set their stall early, or players learn to adapt during a game etc etc. we know players are spoken to before a game. and coaches speak to refs before and sometimes at halftime. so in essence, it is a communication/learning game.
Posted 18:48 03rd October 2012
Kiwidiver says...
How is this post still going?!?
Thanks for marginalizing the Kiwi contributors to this thread as 0.00001% of the population Tolouse. Not inflamatory at all!! And taking that shot at someone's spelling - well that was just gold - you've certainly got me checking for typo's now - in case I incur the wrath of Tolouse.
If you have truly been in the presence of some ex All Blacks then, A. I'm jealous, and B. you would know then, that Kiwi's are intensely proud of the achievements of their national team - and for good reason. Of course there are going to be comments/retaliation to the haters out there.
It seems to me that someone with your obvious intelligence and interest in the game could temper their argument with some analyses of both teams. Instead you come off as particularly one-eyed. At least your last posts about the human factor of refing has some creedence - Perhaps you could stretch this understanding to the members of the NZ commentary box. They are commenting on the fly, and are sometimes called to account on the replay.
Posted 17:04 03rd October 2012
7ton says...
Carpelone
Yes we will have a Toast and thank you but let;s be honest South Africa slow the ball down, block etc as much as the Kiwis or anyone else and we can drum up neutral fans from anywhere agreeing with our views especially if we're in a pub or Brai prompting them. Especially easy to do against winning teams as people like to find reasons for their success, The media like to pull down successful people and teams.
Habana was cynical and a Scallywag and that was a bit of banter from me and I could go on about him being offside (in front of the kicker) on many occassions and he is known for a bit of sneaky playing the ball on the ground but he is only doing what many others do so I don't want to make a big deal about it. He is a great and entertaining player.
So please let's have a bit of humour enjoy the rugby but acknowledge we all have our faults and let's not just single out one team all the time.
Cheers
Posted 13:51 03rd October 2012
TVaddict says...
@sandal
Lol! That was good! I'm afraid I'm not colourful enough for that and it stands for television. How long have you been intellectually curious in this topic?
Posted 13:39 03rd October 2012
Toulousain says...
@kitch. you bring nothing new. go watch the tape. (not over and over again - just once should do it). then let's talk.
@ruckingkiwi. i do you a disservice. i apologise. i have under-estimated you. you make a crucial rugby point. it is indeed about intent. we could call it deontology.
but here's the thing. how does one judge intent?
you suggest it has to do with fitness. and technique. these are indeed important in determining actions, especially under pressure. are you suggesting pumas are not fit or don't have the corect technique? via my husband and mr albacete, i have access to the VO2 max, VE-EQ aerobic scores, as well as the anaerobic wats/sec, watts/kg, fatigue scores for the pumas squad. they are among the highest i have seen. and compare well to olympic oarsman, x-country skiers etc. i don't have the AB scores, but if they are better, the margin must be within 0-5%.
my proposition is that intention is also judged by the referee. who is human. and is influenced by many factors. he looks at a prone pumas body, a fallen tackler, an off-side midfielder, and he thinks, as you do, "well its a pumas player, he's not fit, he hasn't got good technique, i'll award a pen or give the team a warning". now, it is part of the ref's DNA to not be influenced. he does not do it ON PURPOSE. just like you don't.
pls look at the 4 minutess of the tape i have redacted. remove your blinkers. ask yourself if the AB player had a pumas shirt on, what wld your reaction be?
or imagine if this post was written by Graham Henry, and not Toulousain, how would you respond?
Posted 10:31 03rd October 2012
ruckingkiwi says...
Where have I been Toulousain?
After celebrating another win I was getting on with life.
And you, where have you been besides sitting at the computer analysing the All Blacks?!
You can post what you like but don't expect everyone to agree and on the odd occasion you receive a riposte, be man enough to accept it..
I am obviously adding to the debate, my post received a reply from you, didn't it?
All it took was a couple ubiquitous words and you took the bait, no need for humour or persuasion or "raising my game", all that I can save for more challenging times.
Just another fish at the end of the day
Must be a few now carpelone?
And in case you didn't read my post, I was making the point that playing the ruck with positive intent will (or should), in most cases, receive positive reaction from a referee as oppose to playing the ruck with the intent to kill play and negative intentions. A referee can tell who is fit, plays positively, makes a play for the ball and accidentally falls the wrong way, they can also tell who is lazy and unfit, has poor technique and plays with negative intent. That's the difference. You'd know if you played.
yours politely,
ruckingkiwi
Posted 09:55 03rd October 2012
Carpelone says...
7ton
I live in Italy and everybody here love the All Blacks, in spite of my campaign pro Boks. As neutral observers, they observed that even the Baby Blacks last year played the ref too much (blocks, obstructions, you know..). This is what I refer to as cynical attitude. You used to be the most respected rugby nation, but you are dissipating this respect, which is a pity.
We agree that Habana was a bit of a skallywag in that occasion.
We definitely need a bit of humour in this forum and let the rugby unite us.
Win or lose, I will toast you while offering a braai to my Italian friends after the match. Cheers
Posted 09:10 03rd October 2012
kitch says...
tooloosain.."its late now. im off to do more interesting things".. and yet you keep posting!!! haha i should feel priveleged to be considered more interesting than euskadi!!
i didnt realise one had to view a replay over and over again before being able to post!!
"its not your team. what are you ,their coach".. that stupid comment confirms why most are laughing and shaking their heads in disbelief at you and your petty rantings !!
if you cant take your own advice and "care about something else other than your own opinions".. then at least listen to pierredelot.. "i think youve taken the wrong argument.. calm down" !! oh dear i guess its not only the NZ posters, but your own countrymen who are sick of your petty ranting!!
Posted 09:02 03rd October 2012
Toulousain says...
@sandal. you are one of the most rational posters here. i read your stuff with interest. i am sorry i snapped at you 3 days ago. i agree that none of the AB tries involved fwd passes. also that the argentine crowd seemed terrific (from what i could see on tv). we french have indeed lost many times to the pumas. it is like civil war when we play them. they are our brothers and comrades. husbands and sons. we share our lives with them. in our clubs. in our families. so when they lose, we are hurt.
what hurts most, is the difference btw the expectation we had, and the reality that unfolded. we expected a close game. a contest. we got the opposite. for many years france suffered from being the new boys in anglo-saxon managed tournaments. we went through years of being patronised. we dont know the rules. we are thugs. etc. it has taken us 50 years or so to learn the anglo-saxon way, but still we suffer from the perceptions of the past. now it is the time of the pumas. we do not want to see them suffer so long.
so again. pls look at the tape. imagine the colours of the shirts are exchanged. look at how the ABs defend their line for 5 minutes before the camacho try. pls tell me, honestly, if those defensive actions were performed by pumas, don't you think they would have been warned, penalised, yellow carded etc? the commentators would have had a field day.
respectfully yours
t
Posted 08:35 03rd October 2012
sandal says...
I caught highlights of the match last night. None of New Zealand's seven tries featured forward passes or illegalities by the All Blacks, as claimed by some here -- though two of them were scored under penalty advantage for Argentine misdemeanours, and in a third the ref missed an Argentine offside.
I was impressed by the sporting and gracious behaviour of the Argentine crowd, who stood and applauded the All Blacks at the final whistle. Similarly, Argentine contributors below the line here have been generous and gracious.
Compare that with the demented fantasising of Toulousain and other French posters here. As I was watching the highlights, a reason for their deep bitterness occurred to me. Here the All Blacks had won in style. Compare that with the French -- a mere four wins from their last 12 matches against Argentina. I guess such a miserable return hurts, and even maddens, if you're a French rugby fan.
But is Toulousain a French fan, or some pathetic, outcast troll from god knows where? Let's ignore it, please.
Posted 01:47 03rd October 2012
7ton says...
Carpelone
"Cynical attitude?" You mean like Bryan Habana with his little lineout trick a couple of weeks ago :)
I will have to try a glass or 2 of that liquor sometime!
Whatever happens Saturday. Win or lose I will raise a glass to you after the game.
Posted 20:10 02nd October 2012
Trader2 says...
Toulousain I suspect you are a fraud, (poseur) you are not a "59 year old Frenchwoman" thats for sure. I have worked for French companies for 15 years, lived in Paris for 5 years, speak (almost) passable French and your phraseology is like nothing I have seen before from Frenchman (or Woman). Anyway c'est la vie, I will withdraw and leave you to it.
Posted 15:35 02nd October 2012
Andy1000 says...
@Toulousain - I'd love to know your analysis of the final few minutes of France v South Africa semi final at the 95 RWC...
Probably the most rigged result in sporting history.
Posted 15:23 02nd October 2012
Carpelone says...
7ton
Of course I will enjoy. However, Armagnac is liquor, not wine, and the finest one.
To be honest, I enjoy NZ's rugby very much (especially ITM level), just do not like some cynical attitude which emerged at some level. You can still lose one or two games and remain the best.
I like Currie Cup games, I hate Celtic League. The premiership and the Top 14 are way too long to produce any entertainment and it shows with France and England.
I like some banters from time to time, that's all.
IMO, some sense of humour is urgently needed for some Kiwi fans.
You enjoy as well, some English ale if I remember correctly.
Posted 14:00 02nd October 2012
Toulousain says...
wow, there's more fish carpelone!! where have you been all this time ruckingkiwi? you're a little late to the party. did you feel left out?
now, let's see. what are you adding to the debate, with the benefit of being able to read everything written so far? oh. that's a shame. nothing.
just more insults. (i assume by calling me a child, that's what your intention is?). and ubiquitous words like "whinge" and "loser". well, that's helpful. i must sit up and pay attention.
if you don't like analysis, then don't try to join in. save us all the trouble.
for the record, i love the ABs. i love to watch them play. and to analyse. how do you propose to stop me from doing that exactly? by throwing cheap shots on a forum? in case i should run away.... is that how it works where you come from?
try debating for a change. make a point. be persuasive. use humour if you like. or be direct. anything really. just raise your game a little. after all, "rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength".
yours politely,
toulousain
Posted 13:52 02nd October 2012