Jarred Percival knocked over two penalties to give New Zealand a 13-7 lead heading into the break, also by that stage it was clear that the scrum dominance the home side had enjoyed in the first game was no longer a factor. <\/p>\n
A key part of that was prop Tom Rowland, who was well rewarded for an outstanding all round game when he drove over for a lineout drive try straight after the break. That made the score 18-7 and should have sparked some more attacking play; however, another run of yellow cards made that almost impossible.<\/p>\n
First, Percival and Lahiru Thilakaratne were simultaneously carded for a ruck infringement and retaliation respectively, meaning wing Pieter Swarts had to move into first-five for New Zealand. Thenunka Nanayakara knocked over the penalty to cut the lead to eight points, but not long after came the moment of the match.<\/p>\n
Francis Morrison, who only joined the New Zealand team on Monday, found himself on the end of a wide cut out ball from Swarts. Morrison then went on a sidestep spree, beating nine defenders to dive over next to the posts for a try that would rank among the best anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n
Swarts converted, but once again the game devolved as Frazer Harrison was carded for repeated team infringements, then Chad Crenfeldt-Smith unluckily got a fingernail to a pass from Kevindu de Costa that meant he was carded for a deliberate knock on.<\/p>\n
Crenfeldt-Smith\u2019s luck got even worse after he returned, with a tackle slipping high and leaving White no choice but to brandish a second yellow and send the replacement back from the field.<\/p>\n
While the crowd kept its voice to the very end, the final stages were one of frustration for a Sri Lankan side that had all the possession and territory but couldn\u2019t manage to get past some brave short-handed New Zealand defence. Loose forwards Josh Gellert and Josh Evans were absolutely outstanding, with Gellert the only starting forward to back up from last weekend.<\/p>\n
The final whistle was greeted with exhausted jubilation from the New Zealanders, who hoisted the trophy for the second year in a row and Morrison was named player of the match.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Under 85kg 25 (Jack Laity, Tom Rowland, Francis Morrison tries; Jarred Percival 2 pen, con; Pieter Swarts con)<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka 10 (penalty try; Thenunka Nanayakara pen)<\/p>\n
HT: 13-7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jarred Percival knocked over two penalties to give New Zealand a 13-7 lead heading into the break, also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[211051,211050,211049,682,15458,10001,3468,44933,5506,5498,127,1342,2070,18361,16773,6540,6209,14108,211052,60319,685,17768,130,5969,117,111,43,139,69,211054,10715,119675,1963,5348,6102,29850,10809,57816,131,61,8488,211053,8144,8238,102,379,63722,80],"class_list":["post-410252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-211051","tag-85kg","tag-85s","tag-being","tag-cards","tag-closer","tag-deal","tag-dealt","tag-defeat","tag-defeated","tag-despite","tag-five","tag-full","tag-graham","tag-great","tag-hand","tag-henry","tag-however","tag-kandy","tag-lanka","tag-last","tag-means","tag-more","tag-much","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-physicality","tag-remains","tag-retains","tag-series","tag-showing","tag-side","tag-sri","tag-sunday","tag-survive","tag-than","tag-to","tag-trophy","tag-tuskers","tag-unbeaten","tag-under","tag-with","tag-year","tag-yellow","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}