New Zealand get scare before scraping past Pumas

New Zealand 26 Argentina 16

For a moment it seemed as if New Zealand might be about to go the same way as South Africa on Saturday. Down to 13 men and trailing by four points to a physical Argentina side with their tails up, the situation was as dark as the world champions’ new deathly black uniform. The whiff of Brighton hung in the air.

On this occasion the All Blacks survived but here, once again, was evidence that this World Cup will be relentlessly competitive. New Zealand, who lost their captain Richie McCaw and their midfield totem Conrad Smith to the sin-bin in the first-half, did improve late on as their opponents tired but it took all the brilliance of Aaron Smith and the line-breaking skill of Sonny Bill Williams to restore order. Their rivals will look at their occasional scrum problems, in particular, and wonder what might be possible down the track.

Argentina, for their part, will be kicking themselves. In 21 attempts they had never toppled New Zealand yet, for an hour, it looked perfectly possible. Had they been able to sustain their initial forward impetus, they might even have knocked Japan off the front pages. Instead a 66th minute try from replacement Sam Cane gave the All Blacks just enough breathing space and Steve Hansen's worst nightmare was averted.

There had seemed little danger initially. Argentina could do nothing right and were hit with three Dan Carter penalties and a yellow card following a desperate obstruction by flanker Pablo Matera. Argentina, though, are a much more rounded, self-confident side nowadays and made the necessary mental adjustments.

Slowly but surely, the game's momentum started to shift and, having finally camped themselves in the All Black 22, the 20-year-old, Guido Petti, crashed over. Unfortunately for the youngest Puma on the field he took a bang on the head as he did so, ruling him out of the rest of the contest. A heartbreaker, you could say.

With Matera back on, however, Argentina had fresh reason to believe, Nicolás Sánchez, the laziest striker of a dead ball in world rugby, chipped over the conversion before New Zealand struck the least expected of icebergs. McCaw had been sin-binned twice in his previous 142 Tests but he saw yellow here after half an hour for tripping Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe.

The Wembley crowd, containing more than a sprinkling of noisy Argentinian supporters, reacted as if they had just seen Lionel Messi chopped down on the edge of the box. Sanchez duly kicked the penalty to put Argentina ahead and New Zealand fell deeper into the mire when Conrad Smith was also correctly binned for coming in from the side and Sánchez extended the margin to 13-9.

A 13-man New Zealand team has been sighted before but normally only in rugby league. Cleverly they persuaded Matera to give away a soft penalty for not rolling away to reduce the half-time arrears to a solitary point but even with McCaw back the third quarter represented Argentina’s big chance.

The length of Hernández's kicking out of hand and the Pumas' excellence beneath the high ball was causing the All Blacks particular problems, as was the industrious, hard-carrying Agustín Creevy. In Smith's absence there was also a lot of defensive scrambling to be done and an offside call against Owen Franks gave Sánchez another chance to demonstrate his soft shoe accuracy.

There was also a slight hint of desperation about Hansen’s decision to throw on Williams just five minutes after the break in place of Ma’a Nonu, followed by even more Kiwi head-clutching when Williams broke clear close to the Pumas’ line and offloaded to Nehe Milner-Skudder, only for the winger to knock it on. On such tiny misjudgements can World Cup destinies be decided.

New Zealand were going to have to find another way. Milner-Skudder was summarily hauled off and replaced by Beauden Barrett, more of a tactical presence. The All Black forwards sought to regain a measure of control but the Argentinian scrum was giving them absolutely nothing and extracting considerably more.

It was not until the 57th minute that a glimmer of light finally materialised for Hansen, courtesy of his best player, Aaron Smith. The scrum-half is the best in the world and took full advantage when a small gap finally opened up in the otherwise unyielding Puma defence. Even that score came with some debate attached; Wayne Barnes could have penalised a high tackle by Dane Coles while advantage was being played but opted not to.

Carter’s conversion set up the tautest of finales on yet another stupendous rugby occasion. New Zealand could have pulled away but butchered two tries, first when Read could not find McCaw and again when Smith again broke through only for Cane to spill the scoring pass. As it turned out it did not matter, Cane making amends shortly afterwards to settle his country’s jangling nerves and reduce the stadium noise levels a notch or two.

Guardian Service