record defeat against South Africa last weekend<\/a> as a late Cam Roigard try ensured they retained the trophy and stretched their unbeaten record at Auckland’s Eden Park to 52 matches.<\/p>\nThe victory also means they leapfrog their opponents to move top of the Rugby Championship standings before Saturday’s later game between the world champion Springboks and Argentina.<\/p>\n
New Zealand started the match strongly, with winger Caleb Clarke crossing the line inside three minutes and Leroy Carter and Roigard adding further tries to establish a 20-3 midway through the first half.<\/p>\n
But a try from hooker Billy Pollard reduced the Wallabies’ deficit, and a move finished by winger Harry Potter just before the half-time whistle meant they trailed by only three points at the interval.<\/p>\n
Two penalties from Damian McKenzie extended the All Blacks lead in the second half, but a converted try from Wallaby flanker Carlo Tizzano set up an exciting last 10 minutes, putting the visitors within three points of a first victory in Auckland since 1986.<\/p>\n
However, scrum-half Roigard calmed home nerves, sealing the win as he crossed under the posts from a Jordie Barrett pass.<\/p>\n
New Zealand now lead the Rugby Championship with one match remaining, although South Africa will overtake them with victory over Argentina later on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Australia sit in second with two wins and three losses, going into their final match of the tournament against the All Blacks in Perth next weekend.<\/p>\n
Australia have not won at Eden Park since 1986 and have now suffered 23 consecutive defeats at the stadium.<\/p>\n
The Bledisloe Cup is competed for annually by the two nations. The 2025 edition is over two matches – in the event of a 1-1 draw the cup remains with the holders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand held off a Wallaby fightback to secure a 33-24 victory over Australia and extend their grip…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-163604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}