All Blacks withstand fightback to down England

LONDON (Reuters) - New Zealand set about their grand slam tour in customary fashion when they got on top of England early and then held on well in the face of a stirring home fightback to secure a 26-16 victory on Saturday.

England had promised a defensive wall to stem the flow of tries from the Tri-Nations champions but were full of holes from the start and conceded early scores to Hosea Gear and Kieran Read.

The All Blacks led 17-3 at halftime but England hit back with a Dylan Hartley try and the goalkicking of Toby Flood to get back to 23-16.

However, New Zealand quickly stretched the lead again with a Dan Carter penalty then defended superbly in a rousing finale to secure their ninth successive victory over England and set them up for another clean sweep of wins over the home unions.

“Coming to Twickenham is never easy and though there are a few areas we can improve on we are happy to have won the game,” New Zealand coach Graham Henry told reporters.

Captain Richie McCaw added: “The win was really important, the guys were hurting after last week (when they lost to Australia)

“We knew we were in for a big challenge and that’s how it turned out, we had to defend pretty hard at the end and dig deep.”

England manager Martin Johnson rued the slow start that allowed the visitors to race into a 14-0 lead.

“We were rusty, didn’t start well and 14-0 down is not a great place to be,” he said.

“But we did well to give ourselves a shot, there was good tempo, lots of chances created. “We gave them too much respect at times. I thought when we got tempo we looked pretty good but you don’t get a second chance with these guys.

“It’s our first game in a big year. Hopefully we’ll knock the rust off in time for next week.”

England went into the game with their confidence buoyed by beating Australia in Sydney in June but the five-month hiatus left them looking disorganised in the face of an All Black team fresh from regular Tri-Nations outings and last week’s defeat by Australia in Hong Kong.

After 17 minutes New Zealand’s aggressive running paid off when winger Gear touched down in the corner after a defence-splitting offload by Sonny Bill Williams.

The England defence was breached again four minutes later when number eight Read barrelled through and under three tacklers.

England, with only Lewis Moody and Mark Cueto surviving from the 15 beaten 19-6 by the All Blacks a year ago, had only a Flood penalty to show for their limited efforts as the only time they did cross the line at the end of the half fullback Ben Foden was held up.

Springboks withstand Irish fightback

South Africa survived a late onslaught from Ireland to win the first rugby international at the Aviva Stadium 23-21.

Tries from Juan Smith and Gio Aplon added to some fine kicking from Morne Steyn had put South Africa in complete control against an awful looking Ireland team on the site of the old Lansdowne Road, and the Springboks were cruising 23-9 with just 15 minutes to go.

However, the introduction of Ronan O’Gara for his 100th cap helped inspire Ireland back to life as he set up a try for Tommy Bowe 11 minutes from time.

Rob Kearney then went over in the 76th minute but O’Gara missed a chance to equalise as he saw a tough conversion agonisingly hit the post.

South Africa then managed to keep possession for the bulk of the remaining time to pick up a more than deserved victory by a far tighter margin than it should have been.

High ticket prices meant the match was not a sell-out and for most of the match the Irish fans who did turn up must have wished they hadn’t bothered.