2nd game of the Nations Championships with NZ hoping to keep their winning streak alive and Italy looking for their first win after losing to Japan last weekend. The ABs making five changes to the starting XV to play Italy, with two potential debutants and only Cortez Ratima holding his place in the reserves. Leroy Carter at left wing, Tyrel Lomax at Prop, Wallace Sititi at 6, Tupou Vaa’i at lock, and Billy Proctor at 13 are the starting changes. Josh Moorby and Anton Segner are the newbies and are joined by George Bower, Pasilio Tosi, and Anton Lienert-Brown, who all missed selection in Christchurch.

Italy made three changes from the team that lost to Japan bringing in Tommaso Allen at 15 and Louis Lynhag on the left wing with Ross Vintcent at 6 and bringing Giulio Marini into the reserves.

NZ and Italy have faced each other a total of 18 times in the past with NZ winning all 18 games. In the 2019 RWC their game was called off and although registering a nil all draw it has not been recognised as a test match due to not having started.

The Game

The Italians started well scoring with a scintillating move through the backs where some poor defence allowed Tommaso Menoncello to slice through for the opening try to put Italy ahead early. Led by a relentless “rush defense,” Italy completely disrupted New Zealand’s narrow 1-3-3-1 attacking system. The All Blacks struggled heavily with multiple handling errors, and a firing Italian set-piece that stole three lineouts. Despite dominating collisions and looking like the better team for stretches, Italy couldn’t capitalise on every opportunity. Late first-half tries by Blues lock Sam Darry and winger Will Jordan allowed a scratchy New Zealand side to escape with a narrow 14-10 halftime lead. 

In the second half things changed. Ruben Love began holding his passes a fraction longer which enabled him to beat Italy’s rush defence and create some space out wide. In an early high tempo period of 14 minutes the ABs scored 4 tries and 24 points giving them a big lead in the match. Will Jordan scored a hat trick of tries in the game becoming the highest individual All Black try scorer and equaling Portia Woodman’s all time NZ try scoring record.

The massive defensive workload eventually caught up to Italy. They made a massive 210 tackles compared to New Zealand’s 119 and their game was further troubled when lock Niccolò Cannone was red-carded for head contact on Cam Roigard. This completely ended any real hopes of an Italian fightback. Cannone appeared to be trying to free himself more than anything else, but driving himself forward with his head making contact with Roigard was never going to end well. Even if not deliberate, it was certainly extremely careless. Adding to Italy’s worries, their fullback Tommaso Allan had to be stretchered off late with a heavy blow to the sternum.

For the ABs, outside of that initial 24 minute period in the 2nd half the game was very messy with some poor decisions, poor handling and missed tackles that kept them under pressure for a large part of the game. There were some very good plays at times with Roigard, Love, Morby and Barrett doing well in the backs and Ardie, Darry and De Groot doing well in the forwards. It was very pleasing to see the reserves come on and continue to take the game forward with the ABs finally winning the game 47 – 17.

The Game Changer

While that 24 minute period with 3 tries was very good, for me the game changer was the Red Card to Cannone and Allen being stretchered off. Italy never seemed to get over those two incidents and while they tried hard and even scored a late try to Leonardo Marin after the card, they struggled to maintain the same pressure they did in the first half.

MOTM

Will Jordan scoring a hat trick and becoming the AB’s highest try scorer was the official MOTM. However, for me the two players who stood out were Sam Darry in the forwards and Jordie Barrett in the backline. Both of these two gave it 100% all game and it was their hard work and play that allowed others to shine.

Conclusion

For me the match ended up with the sort of scoreline that I expected. Italy are no slouches having beaten both Scotland and England in the 6N, however while they had a very good defence and played some great rugby with short passes finding players, they were unable to complete their moves and turned over far too much ball at crucial times.

The AB’s seem to be travelling in the right direction and also showed some very good attack at times with some great passing and individual plays. However, the defence still doesn’t seem to be working as well as it should and some players missed some tackles they should have completed. It was a good win in the end but I don’t think Dave and his team will be very happy with the overall game and if they don’t sort the defence out they could struggle against Ireland next week.

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