New Zealand will face Australia next Saturday at Twickenham and Wallabies head coach Michael Cheika has played down his teams chances of beating the All Blacks. “I dreamed about playing in a World Cup after that”.
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However, the Puma’s put a tough game for the All Blacks, despite losing 26 – 16. But New Zealand held on in the rain.
The game against Tonga became one of the most spectacular matches to watch as it also saw the battle of Warrior Dances, the All Black Haka and Tonga’s Sipi Tau.
Australia’s advance to their first World Cup final match-up against New Zealand’s All Blacks triggered an exchange of verbal barrages from salivating fans and pundits on both sides of the Tasman Sea on Monday.
Australia won this year’s Southern Hemisphere Rugby Championship. In this World Cup they were confronted with France again in the quarterfinals, but blew them away, 62-13. “So I want to make sure the whole team performance is good and I thought it was on the weekend (against Argentina)”.
“He pulled up pretty good”, Cheika said about Folau from his team’s training base in Teddington.
“Last week (against Ireland) every bounce went our way, and we went out with the same ideas against Australia, but they dominated the breakdown and every bounce went their way”.
The looming departure of a clutch of All Blacks greats won’t play a part in their preparation for the Rugby World Cup final.
Australia’s victory over Argentina means they will match the All Blacks in making a fourth appearance in a final.
“Let’s try our best, do everything we can, be honest with each other, and let that be seen by the way we play the game, not talk about doing certain things and trying to market that or promote it”.
They haven’t made it to a World Cup decider since then, and Larkham gives Cheika and the culture he has created, plus the efficiency of the way he operates, a lot of the credit for that.
But they but nearly came unstuck in the quarter-final against Scotland, needing a last-minute penalty to stay alive in the competition, before rebounding to score four unanswered tries against Argentina.
“So they’ll be feeling they’ve got our measure and it’s going to be up to us to do something special, something extra just to be competitive”.
Meanwhile, the Australian Rugby Union has placed a $300,000 bet with a local corporate bookmaker via a third party insurance firm to collect more than $3 million if Australia upset New Zealand.
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Carter, the highest scorer in Test rugby, kicked 10 points, including a crucial drop goal in a second half resurgence, as New Zealand fought back from 12-7 down to beat the Springboks 20-18 on Saturday and storm into a record fourth World Cup final. “We will just see how he goes but he has been running already and has got movement back in his elbow”.
