All Blacks delight at big Rugby World Cup win over Namibia but discipline still an issue

TOULOUSE – All Blacks coach Ian Foster was delighted with New Zealand’s first win of this Rugby World Cup on Friday, but there were as many questions about discipline as tries after their 71-3 rout of Namibia.

Coming off successive losses to South Africa and France in which his forwards were overpowered at times, Foster was happy with the platform the pack laid against Namibia in their Pool A clash in Toulouse.

“We went out and clearly tried to establish ourselves up front, particularly,” he said.

“I thought we got that dominance pretty early, which was the key to the game and enabled us to pick and choose how we wanted to play after that.

“Obviously we’re delighted with the result and with the performance so that’s a step forward.”

The coach was rewarded for his selection by a fine performance from scrum-half Cam Roigard, who scored two tries and made another on his first Test start.

“He played really well, took his opportunities, it’s one thing to have good go-forward ball but it’s another to make good decisions,” Foster added.

Power wingers Caleb Clarke and Leicester Fainga’anuku both got on the score sheet and fly-half Damian McKenzie also crossed twice and converted eight of the 11 tries.

The other scorers were Anton Lienert-Brown, Ethan de Groot, Dalton Papali’i, David Havili and Rieko Ioane.

The evening was marred in the 72nd minute when prop de Groot was shown a yellow card for high contact which was upgraded to red after a television match official review.

Foster said it was “frustrating” and suggested the All Blacks would be looking to draw a comparison with the challenge committed by France’s Romain Taofifenua on Thursday, which drew a yellow card but was not upgraded to red.

“There’s obviously a lot of shoulder on shoulder involved in that contact,” he said, later adding: “People are searching for consistency at the moment, we’ll just have to see what happens.”

Even before that, though, it was not an entirely perfect night for all the brilliant attacking play.

The scrum had a free kick awarded against it, they had a try chalked off for obstruction at a rolling maul and were penalised 12 times.

“It’s a good feeling getting the win tonight especially after last week’s result,” said stand-in captain Ardie Savea of the loss to hosts France in their tournament opener.

“In our defence, we gave a few penalties away and they got opportunities to drive. We want to eliminate those, we want to be ruthless in that area. But I’m very proud of the men.”

Savea wore a Namibia jersey to the post-match press conference and revealed that the two teams were having a drink together in the changing rooms.

“It goes back to the rugby values of smashing each other and having a beer after,” he added.

Namibia coach Allister Coetzee was pleased with his side’s performance despite the heavy defeat. Their game plan was to show some heart and disrupt New Zealand as much as they could, and they did succeed to a degree.

“These (games at the World Cup) are all building blocks,” he said. “We can do better at set pieces, we were put under severe pressure there. But there was still fight.

“What we need to get better at is making sure we look after the ball. Again we had a couple of opportunities which we created and didn’t take. (But) that’s good, as long as you keep creating them.”

The loss extended the African country’s losing streak at seven World Cups to 24 matches. A defeat by New Zealand, though, was not a big surprise.

“We were up against the classy All Blacks side. The pace which they play at made it quite tough for the boys but we learnt lessons again tonight,” Coetzee added.
REUTERS