NEW ZEALAND MAY have been shell-shocked by England at the semi-final stage, but they took less than five minutes to rediscover some of their sparkling best in this morning’s third-place play-off against Wales.
Loosehead Joe Moody applied the finish to a scintillating early move that was sparked by an offload from Richie Mo’unga to Kieran Read. He then put Brodie Retallick through the gap and the lock tossed the ball out of contact to his fellow tight-five forward.
06: TRY New Zealand!
— eir Sport (@eirSport) November 1, 2019
Ominous start from the All Blacks. Brilliant from Read & Retallick and a super finish from Joe Moody.
LIVE now on eir sport 1! #RWC2019 #RWCTokyo pic.twitter.com/M6fFcwbVmz
In a match neither team wanted to play in, neither defence has been able to muster an impermeable wall and Wales hit back with a Hallam Amos try on 19 minutes. But New Zealand are making the most of the openings with two tries on the board inside 13 minutes, the second arriving thanks to a Beauden Barrett cut.
It’s Rugby World Cup final week! On the latest episode of The42 Rugby Weekly, Murray Kinsella joins Gavan Casey and Sean Farrell to preview Saturday’s showdown between England and South Africa.
For all the doom and gloom talked about Tottenham this season (no signings, stadium delays, Poch to United, out of both domestic cups), they continue to jog just behind the top 2, while keeping the top 4 dogfight just out of sight in the rearview mirror. One loss and they’ll be branded bottle jobs again, but with Wembley form picking up, and a tasty tie against Dortmund coming up, I can’t help but be happy.
Hanging on in there. Not at their best but picking up another win. COYS
Spurs are the type of football club that would give ya the horn.
@limofax: just like your ma, good stuff.
COYS
I can’t suffer Michael Oliver either.
He was the last one picked in school who:
1) you stuck in nets cos he’s brutal at football
2) you then told him to keep time cos he was crap in goal
3) eventually made him referee cos he was brutal at everything else, then became a brutal ref
Leicester should have been out of sight but Spurs more clinical with the chances they had