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The All Blacks have trounced Nambia 71-3 but it came at a significant cost with prop Ethan de Groot suffering a red card in the final 10 minutes and facing a likely ban.
De Groot went high in a tackle on 71 minutes and was given a yellow by referee Luke Pearce. It was upgraded to a red while he waited on the bench and he became the first All Black red carded at a World Cup.
All Blacks coach Ian Foster wasn’t convinced that it was red worthy and made seemingly made reference to a controversial moment in the France vs Uruguay game a day earlier.
“We will have a look at it, there was a lot of shoulder on shoulder in that contact, but we will compare it to something that happened yesterday and see what comes from it,” he said on BBC 5 Live Sports Extra.
Without elaborating it’s thought Foster was referring to a yellow given to Frenchman Romain Taofifenua in Thursday’s win over Uruguay.
Foster, speaking to Sky NZ, added: “It’s frustrating getting a card. We’ll have a look at it. Experience has told me to breathe a bit and have a good look at it. There’s a lot of shoulder on shoulder – we’ll have a look overnight and see what happens.”
“It will probably be three weeks,” said All Blacks legend John Kirwan on the Sky coverage, while former Wallaby Sekope Kepu agreed.
“It’s very unfortunate,” said Kepu. “It’s hard with those tackles. You’re upright, he’s coming at you and all you can do is try to tackle him. Unfortunately he had his arms kind of tucked and that’s why he’s been given the red card.”
Former All Black Israel Dagg agreed it was red worthy/
Ïf you look at the mitigating factors there was a lot of the chest still available to Ethan de Groot to drop in. It was probably bad intentions from the outset.”
Dagg questioned if it might be better to replace de Groot in the squad, although the team is already without prop Tyrel Lomax, who has an injury.
The Kiwis, who lost their opening match to France, scored 11 tries. Damian McKenzie added 16 points.
Cam Roigard and McKenzie scored two tries each while Leicester Fainga’anuku, Anton Lienert-Brown, Ethan De Groot, Dalton Papali’i, David Havili, Caleb Clarke and Rieko Ioane also scored.
(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
Roigard was impressive despite the quality of the opposition and helped assist three other tries to give Ian Foster some thinking to do in deciding who is No.2 behind Aaron Smith.
“Pretty surreal, the atmosphere was outstanding we are fortunate that our forwards were dominant giving me a good platform to play off,” Roigard said.
“But credit to Namibia they showed a lot of heart and passion.
“I suppose myself and Damien McKenzie have had some training groups together, we are working out how we like to play and his attacking play suits mine so I really enjoyed it tonight.”
All Blacks skipper Ardie Savea noted the discipline issues at the finish.
“It is a good feeling getting the win after the last result. I am very proud of the men having a good week of preparation and getting the win,” said Savea.
“Still a few areas of improvement, Namibia put us under pressure, but we will work on it.
“Our discipline in defence is one we gave a few penalties away and we want to eliminate those and be ruthless in that area.”