England have burgled an outrageous 25-25 draw with New Zealand with an extraordinary late turnaround having trailed almost all match.
England scored three tries in the last ten minutes to recover from 25-11 down at Twickenham on Saturday.
But there were questions over England’s decision to kick the ball into touch from the last kick off reception, with Marcus Smith deciding to accept the draw rather than push for a win.
“It’s always up to the players,” said England coach Eddie Jones of the decision. “The referee was being very hard on the attacking rucks so there was a lot of sense in the decision they made
Captain Owen Farrell added: “I think it depended where we had the ball. It’s a difficult place to go from. They had bodies piling in, we had men out. It was the right decision I think. “
But New Zealand coach Ian Foster seemed bemused.
“Was I surprised? Yeah, I was,” said Foster. All I know is if you flipped it over I would have liked our guys to have a crack so I am not sure what their tactics were but to be fair to them, they were running hot for seven, eight minutes.
“Things were going really well and they probably felt like getting back to a draw was a massive achievement in that time and so they probably decided to take it.”
A late brace from Will Stuart – the first England prop to score two tries in a match – and a Freddie Steward cross helped them to a result which will nonetheless do little to quieten critics of their Australian coach Eddie Jones.
Flanker Dalton Papali’i opened the scoring for New Zealand after just four minutes, appearing to read an English strike play off the tail of their lineout and intercepting Jack van Poortvliet’s pass to run 45 metres untouched.
They added a second minutes later, Codie Taylor bundling over from a lineout after England were penalised at the scrum, and the hosts were in bad shape at 0-14 down inside ten minutes.
It was nearly 21-0 but a third try was denied after video review due to a foul by scorer Rieko Ioane on Owen Farrell in the build-up.
(Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)
Nevertheless New Zealand were 17-3 up at the break and 25-6 up midway through the second half with Ioane scoring.
With seemingly nothing to lose, England suddenly exploded out of nowhere, Marcus Smith skipping through a gap to set up a close range Stuart try and Freddie Steward rounding off a free-flowing attack to add another.
The Twickenham crowd were delirious when Stuart went over again in the final minute, with Smith converting to complete a remarkable comeback.
Foster paid tribute to England’s comeback.
“Its 25-all, there is a lot of drama, some close calls with TMOs but you have to take your hat off to England. I am proud of the first 70 (minutes), we played the kind of rugby we have been searching for,” said Foster.
“I thought we dominated for large parts of it. Test matches are tough, people make too much out of something and I think we are building strongly but we did not nail the last 10 minutes.”
Jones summed it up this way: “I thought New Zealand were superb in the first half, they were aggressive they won the ruck and when they had the opportunities they were able to score. We hung in there a lot and you always get the chance to attack, and we had that at the end.
“We put in some of the things we have worked on – running straighter, attacking gaps, quicker support play and it was fantastic.”
piru
Roar Rookie
I actually didn't mind the reffing tbh - it was hellaciously technical but consistent. It only really became silly when tired players started infringing more often
Jacko
Roar Rookie
So who do you replace Mounga with? Has to be Dmac based on his Baabaas and NZXV form.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
Do you watch Dmac at 10 at all? He has been very good.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
Yeah they can stay within 3 points of France and Ireland when missing some players. Those are supposedly the best two teams going in to next years WC.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
And very costly.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
Agree Mounga has to get better as he was terrible. Is there a new 10 before the WC? Id love to see NZ rugby actually put developing some 10s as a priority instead of putting our best 10s coming thru at FB all the time. I believe Z Sullivan could have been a fantastic 10 but he just gets put at 15 all the time. We need some new 10s coming thru. We dont need any new FBs at the moment.
donmcdazzle
Roar Rookie
Isn’t the best line up for us Will Jordan at 15 with BB on the bench covering 10/15? I feel like we have way more wing options than 10 or 15 options.
donmcdazzle
Roar Rookie
McKenzie running sideways and getting steamrolled wouldn’t have helped anyone. I’m a fan of Mo’unga at 10 but he did some poor things today. Needed someone to grab the game and take control, and nobody did it for us. In days gone by the likes of Carter or Cruden would’ve controlled it better than that. Missing touch twice isn’t good enough either. Give it to JB from now on, we can’t risk that sort of error again. Killed our momentum. There’s nobody better at 10 but Mo’unga has to be better.
The Late News
Roar Rookie
Yeah like a pregnancy and a 8 week old!
The Late News
Roar Rookie
Yes a reading from the book of Mathieu!
Faith
Roar Rookie
I cannot understand how Nepo is still in this side.
Faith
Roar Rookie
Those Richie misses for the touchline were inexusable.
FunBus
Roar Rookie
Goal line defence was good, but England had a weird case of rampant white line fever.
FunBus
Roar Rookie
A bit drunk last night, so just about to rewatch the game. My first blurred impression was that everything that could go wrong for England at the start did go wrong. Throw an intercept, then two poor back to back ref decisions (a knock-on at a ruck that wasn’t and a scrum penalty that went the wrong way) and you’ve got a 5m lineout and you’re 14 points down after 9 minutes. Given that England did OK, but lots to work on.
FunBus
Roar Rookie
Agree with most of that. Don’t underestimate how much better England might be come RWC time, though.
FunBus
Roar Rookie
‘Celebrating like they’d won the world cup?’ Gosh some people really only see what they want to, eh?
Adzy
Roar Rookie
Do that and they win.
Derek Murray
Roar Rookie
If it’s just from a consistency perspective, nobody can improve more than Australia
Andy J
Roar Rookie
Says a lot about lost aura! Setttling for a draw and celebrating like you’ve won the world cup
Andy J
Roar Rookie
Game management 101 really. Penalty advantage straight in front good lead 10 to go. Keep playing at best score a try, at worse eat up sometime then take a set shot 3 minutes off the clock. Now 7 minutes to play same lead. Why take the drop goal???