Bledisloe heartache as All Blacks blow away Wallabies at Eden Park again

It’s the hope that kills you.

The long wait of Wallabies fans to see an Australian win over New Zealand at Eden Park will stretch into a 41st year after the All Blacks turned on another ruthless performance at their spiritual home to post a 50-19 victory.

The seven-tries-to-three victory ensured the All Blacks also retained the Bledisloe Cup for a 24th straight year, and handed Les Kiss his first defeat as Wallabies coach. On the flipside, it gave former Wallabies coach Dave Rennie his first taste from the elusive Bledisloe urn after several years of failure in gold.

The All Blacks have a habit of flossing their teeth with Australian optimism, and so it proved again in Auckland.

The Wallabies entered the match being talked up as a rising side with the potential to break some long-standing droughts at Eden Park, based on their last-start win over the Springboks and the Kiwis’ three-Test losing streak.

No Wallaby side has won at Eden Park since 1986, and no side has beaten the All Blacks there since 1994.

Those records rarely seemed threatened on a night that followed an all-too familiar script.

The Wallabies trailed by just 17-14 at the break, having stayed in touch with two tries despite being under siege for most the half.

Throughout the night, the Aussies were dominated all night in the aerial contests and the All Blacks were also put under no linespeed pressure from the Wallabies, who were using a passive defensive system. The Kiwis waited patiently for opportunities to strike and slice through gaps, or in the second half, simply hold the ball for long enough to drive in a try against the tiring visitors.

When they had the ball, the verve and sharp, clinical attack shown by the Wallabies attack in the previous months was mostly missing, in an unusually listless performance.

Australia’s window of staying in the game and potentially even winning came early in the second half, when they had several chances to score in the Kiwi quarter and take the lead.

But Irish referee Andrew Brace pinged the Wallabies for two 50-50 penalties, which piggybacked New Zealand up into the Wallaby quarter, and the Kiwis made no mistakes with their territory. They scored in the 49th minute and then again in the 54th minute. Now trailing by 16, the air went out of the Wallabies’ tyres.

Chasing the game, the Wallabies then made errors in their own half and conceded another three tries in the last quarter. A late try to reserve hooker Josh Nasser was in the category of too little, too late.

To make matters worse on an already black night, star centre Len Ikitau came off the field with a concussion, which will rule him out of the second Bledisloe Cup clash in Sydney next week.

Rennie labelled a tackle by Rob Valetini on All Blacks winger Leroy Carter – which saw the flyer taken off with an ankle injury after scoring – as a “hip drop” but the big No.8 is not likely to face sanction, given World Rugby’s new ban on the tackle doesn’t come in until November 1.

“The boys are disappointed for sure,” Kiss said. “The first half, they had a long period where they had control of the game, but the boys stayed in and got some return in their game just before half-time, which was pleasing. We started the second half pretty well, just [gave New Zealand] easy outs through penalties.

“Next time down there we lost an opportunity, so we didn’t give ourselves a chance to play there through our own doing really. But they also played a fairly savvy game in turning the ball back and putting us under pressure in terms of our field position. You’ve got to take your hat off to them.

“They won the aerial battles and they profited off those things very well as well. It was just hard to get a footing in that second half, and when we had a chance, as I said, there were two opportunities, and we robbed ourselves of those opportunities.”

Wallabies captain Harry Wilson said the result was a kick in the teeth.

“That put us under pressure and made us just tackle, tackle, really suck the energy out of us,” Wilson said. “And they were clinical, when they got down in there. We made them work for the tries, but they kept getting back down there.

“It was disappointing. We came here wanting a result, and we didn’t get that.

“But we know as a team, as a squad, it’s not always on the up. Sometimes you’ve got to take a step back, and we’re taking that now, and we’ve got to take our learnings from that and get ready for a big battle next week.”

Asked about the Kiwis’ aerial dominance, Kiss said: “They were certainly a lot more accurate than our kicks when we put them up, that’s for sure. And it was just in this position where you’re trying to go back or forward to catch the ball, and they had the momentum on it each time.

“It’s not just the win of the ball. It’s what happens after that, and I thought a couple of times they were just on the front foot, and we just didn’t match that at that time.”

The All Blacks led 17-14 after an opening half where the Wallabies started and finished the first well, but battled in the middle.

The Wallabies opened the scoring when a second-wave shape saw Ben Donaldson tap the ball onto the Max Jorgensen, who surged through a gap and passed to Tom Wright. The fullback had Suaalii on his outside but dummied and found a tiny gap, racing 20 metres to score.

The Kiwis responded quickly, however, when they finally got some possession and they were helped by the Wallabies’ inability to win contestable kicks. After one retake from Jordie Barrett, the Wallabies defence was caught sleepily retreating and disjointed, and Damian McKenzie sliced through. He found Peter Lakai in support for a 12th-minute try.

It was more of the same just three minutes later, when the Wallabies’ defensive line was again breached; this time through poor spacing. Tupou Vai’i ended up charging over in the 15th minute.

The visitors defended their line strongly in the last 10 minutes, and instead of conceding another try, which could have been a game-sealer already, the Wallabies shocked the crowd by scoring.

A penalty helped the Aussies into the All Black half, and again Donaldson got the ball out the back on attack. He slipped through the line and found skipper Harry Wilson in support. The skipper raced in under the sticks, bringing the deficit back to just three points at the break.

The Wallabies began the second half brightly, and counter-attacked down to the Kiwis line immediately. But they missed that chance, and missed another chance soon after, when a strong Valetini run set up a chance for a lineout maul.

But referee Brace pinged the Wallabies for a pedantic obstruction penalty at the lineout, and then penalised them again for holding on from a contestable kick. Following a lineout maul – in which New Zealand went unpenalised for the same lifter obstruction – halfback Cam Roigard dived over from broken play.

By now, the Wallabies looked sapped and using a passive defensive line, were allowing the All Blacks to dictate terms at the contact zone. It seemed almost inevitable that the Kiwis would score again and they did in the 54th minute, when Codie Taylor broke through goalline defence and scored.

The lead was now 16, with 20 minutes to go, and the night was as good as over for the Wallabies.

Leroy Carter, Josh Moorby and Jordan all rubbed more salt in the wounds with last-quarter tries.