Defending champions New Zealand finished pool play at the Rugby World Cup undefeated with a convincing 47-9 victory over Tonga at St James’ Park in Newcastle.
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The team to play New Zealand this time has a Tongan record 360 caps which pales in comparison to the All Blacks with a combined 1,251 Tests worth of experience.
The All Blacks’ quarter-final opponents will be the loser of the France v Ireland pool game at the Millennium Stadium on Monday morning NZT.
The result lifted Argentina into the quarter-finals, and confirmed Georgia as third in the pool and an automatic qualifier for the 2019 World Cup. And for spells they were just as disjointed against the Pacific Islanders, but once they did get motoring they simply blew Tonga away.
New Zealand All Blacks vs Tonga Ikale Tahi Live Streaming Updates and Score Of 2015 Rugby World Cup 2015. Dan Carter landed six of seven conversions.
Piutau, whose brother Charles has played for the All Blacks, is one of 12 members of the Tongan squad born overseas, a lot of them in New Zealand.
Kurt Morath then got Tonga on the board with the first of his three penalties, before the All Blacks extended their lead thanks to a surprise try-scorer in prop forward Tony Woodcock.
Other tweets included: “The All Blacks are going to have to improve if they are to win this World Cup” and “Are the ABs holding everything back or are they really not that good in this comp”.
The decisive passage of play came either side of the interval, when Read was sin-binned for bringing down the maul and Tonga inched ever closer to the All Black line.
He refers to Nonu, who will be playing his 100th Test, as his “eyes and ears” relaying what he is seeing and “helping me with my option taking”.
“At the end of the day we’ve got to go in attacking”, captain Nili Latu said.
Star wingers Fetu’u Vainikolo and Telusa Veainu will be looking to make their mark against the world’s best side, whilst there is a huge boost on the bench with man-of-the-match in the win over Namibia, Jack Ram, returning from injury to take his place amongst the matchay 23. He shared, “Hopefully tomorrow will be the day that the All Blacks are caught cold”. “We all felt it. You don’t like seeing it and it dawns on you how cut-throat this competition is”. A quarter-final is something that really excites me and the rest of this team.
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The first half saw the All Blacks trying to create out wider earlier in the sequences of play, but they could not find the holes. Replacements: Barrett for Naholo (68), Kerr-Barlow for A. Smith (76), Crockett for Woodcock (43), Mealamu for Coles (67), B. Franks for O. Franks (62), Retallick for Romano (50), Messam for Whitelock (68).
