{"id":923373,"date":"2026-10-10T19:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T19:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/923373\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T19:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T19:30:17","slug":"eden-park-humbling-to-test-wallabies-resolve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/923373\/","title":{"rendered":"Eden Park humbling to test Wallabies’ resolve"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whatever belief the Wallabies had built in Les Kiss’s winning start will be tested but lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto insists another Eden Park humbling won’t burst their bubble.<\/p>\n

Australia scored first then threatened to lead again early in the second half before New Zealand scored 26-straight points and blew the Wallabies out 50-19 at Eden Park.<\/p>\n

The win, ahead of Sydney’s rematch on Saturday, maintained New Zealand’s 23-year hold on the Bledisloe Cup and was their 12th-straight win against the Wallabies.<\/p>\n

Victory also extended the All Blacks’ unbeaten run at the Auckland stadium to 54 games, since 1994.<\/p>\n

“When you give the ABs that much ball and that much ruck speed, it’s hard to beat them when you’re on the back foot like that,” Salakaia-Loto, who played the entire game, said.<\/p>\n

“We understand that. They’re a tough, tough outfit, but we go back home, get to regroup, prepare like we did this week.<\/p>\n

“We’re back in our backyard and we’re looking to square that up.”<\/p>\n

The Wallabies had beaten South Africa two weeks ago to make it six games unbeaten – five of them under new coach Kiss – for the first time in nine years.<\/p>\n

“Our belief isn’t built just based on wins,” the lock, now back and established in the side after missing squad selections under previous coach Joe Schmidt, said.<\/p>\n

“Our belief is built through connection throughout the group and our preparation that we do day in, day out.<\/p>\n

“Our confidence isn’t shot at all. We get to have another crack at them next week back in Sydney, so we’re looking forward to that.”<\/p>\n

\"Codie<\/p>\n

Australia suffered a 12th-straight defeat to the All Blacks, for whom skipper Codie Taylor crossed (Andrew Cornaga\/AAP PHOTOS<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The side’s lineout has improved drastically and, for the most part, fired again even without injured lock Josh Canham in Auckland.<\/p>\n

But a costly obstruction as the Wallabies, trailing 17-14 just after halftime, went to a maul after a five-metre lineout, will be marked down as a key turning point.<\/p>\n

They were also comprehensively beaten in the air, with All Blacks halfback Cam Roigard’s pinpoint bombs creating uncertainty among Australia’s catchers.<\/p>\n

\"Cam<\/p>\n

The influential Cam Roigard dodges Ryan Lonergan of Australia in Saturday’s victory at Eden Park. (Joshua Devenie\/AAP PHOTOS<\/a>)<\/p>\n

“There were some big moments that didn’t go our way and we hurt ourselves,” Salakaia-Loto said.<\/p>\n

“So we’ve only got ourselves to blame, but we know that we fix that up and we take those opportunities like we did in the first half, we go a long way to doing the things that we want to do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whatever belief the Wallabies had built in Les Kiss’s winning start will be tested but lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":923374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-923373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923373","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=923373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}