{"id":286906,"date":"2025-11-15T21:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/286906\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T21:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:05:09","slug":"england-33-19-new-zealand-george-ford-central-to-famous-win-over-all-blacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/286906\/","title":{"rendered":"England 33-19 New Zealand: George Ford central to famous win over All Blacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The All Blacks started quickly at Allianz Stadium, racing into a 12-point lead with tries by Leicester Fainga’anuku and Codie Taylor.<\/p>\n

Following Ollie Lawrence’s powerful finish, Ford’s back-to-back drop-goals meant the hosts bounced into the changing rooms with the momentum.<\/p>\n

“The challenging thing in those moments is, when the scoreboard says 12-0, we can stick to our guns and what we believe the best way to play the game is,” Ford said.<\/p>\n

“We got ourselves back into it and we knew if we started the second half well, with the bench coming on, we were in a good position.<\/p>\n

“Even with 15 minutes left, we ended up on our own line with a yellow card, so we had challenges there as well.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s what Test rugby is – who can deal with those moments the best.”<\/p>\n

Both kicks came within two minutes of each other as the fly-half, who nailed three drop-goals in a win against Argentina<\/a> at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, showed all his 104-cap experience.<\/p>\n

Ford hit two drop-goals for Sale in a Prem game<\/a> played in difficult conditions at Bath – it is a skill he is well-practised in.<\/p>\n

“It [the drop-goals] is always in the plan,” Ford added.<\/p>\n

“Steve is such an incredible coach that he is always in my ear about it, and rightly so because three points is valuable at any stage of the game.”<\/p>\n

Ford marshalled his side brilliantly around the field all game, kicking smartly – both to compete and in finding space behind the visitors’ backfield.<\/p>\n

His signature ‘spiral bomb’ also bamboozled Beauden Barrett, who failed to regather.<\/p>\n

Having started England’s win over Australia on 1 November, Ford handed over the number 10 jersey to Fin Smith for the Fiji victory a week later.<\/p>\n

But the biggest test on paper this autumn came against the three-time world champions, with Ford regaining his spot.<\/p>\n

England, now on a run of 10 straight wins, face Argentina on 23 November and it will be interesting to discover if Borthwick goes back to Fin Smith or continues with Ford.<\/p>\n

Whichever decision is made, Ford proved two years away from a World Cup that there is plenty of rugby left in him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The All Blacks started quickly at Allianz Stadium, racing into a 12-point lead with tries by Leicester Fainga’anuku…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-286906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}