AUCKLAND, 10 July 2005 — The British and Irish Lions slumped to their first series whitewash in 22 years yesterday with a 38-19 defeat to the New Zealand All Blacks in the third Test.
Both All Blacks captain Tana Umaga and powerful loose forward Jerry Collins were yellow-carded in an incident-packed encounter which the home side won convincingly.
Before a crowd of 47,500, it was a five tries to one victory for the All Blacks who shut down the Lions with a solid wall of defense.
As in the first Test the Lions came out fired-up and had six points on the board from two early penalties, but the All Blacks responded to Umaga’s seventh-minute sin-binning with two quick tries as the Lions defense wilted early.
It was the 10th series defeat in 11 visits to New Zealand, as the All Blacks again ran the tourists off their feet with an expansive game, although precision passing was not as evident as earlier in the series without injured flyhalf Dan Carter.
Carter’s replacement Luke McAlister showed first Test nerves, dropping the ball in the rain and kicking when his outsides had an overlap, but he made amends with a 100 percent kicking record which produced 13 points from five conversions and a penalty.
Conrad Smith and Rico Gear were both rewarded with tries from brilliant solo efforts, while the only time the flying left wing Sitivini Sivivatu crossed the line the All Blacks were marched halfway down the field and penalized for an earlier indiscretion.
In the forward the All Blacks front row of Greg Somerville, Keven Mealamu and Tony Woodcock had too much power and authority for the Lions, but they suffered in the line-outs from misdirected throws and giving up penalties for wrong numbers.
The Lions backs seemed bereft of ideas. They had ample supply of ball but midfielders Will Greenwood and Gareth Thomas, later replaced by Shane Horgan, merely provided Umaga and Smith with tackling practice.
Scrumhalf Matt Dawson and flyhalf Ronan O’Gara made a big impact when they came on in the second spell, but by then it was too late.
After Stephen Jones’ two early penalties, the black machine swung into action.
Conrad Smith scored the first try in a blind-side move, stepping inside lame tackle attempts from Mark Cueto and Geordan Murphy in a 22-meter run to the line. Within minutes of the restart, Dwayne Peel failed to hold a Luke McAlister chip to the line and powerful All Blacks lock Ali Williams dived on the ball for his second try of the series.
Larkham Outstanding as Wallabies
Score Five Tries Against Springboks
In Sydney, fly-half Stephen Larkham spearheaded Australia to an impressive 30-12 win over South Africa in the first of two Mandela Challenge Plate rugby Tests at the Sydney Olympic stadium yesterday.
Man-of-the-match Larkham was in imperious form as the Wallabies scored five tries to nil, three of them coming in the first half to set up a commanding 18-3 half-time lead.
The South Africans had more of the ball in the second half and kept play in the forwards, but could not breach the Australian try-line and finished with four penalty goals, all from fullback Percy Montgomery, who had two stints in the blood bin.
The loss means that South Africa have not won their last eight internationals in Australia since their last win in Perth in 1998.
Larkham was at the heart of the Australian attacks, carrying out coach Eddie Jones’ game plan of kicking long and moving around the giant South African forwards.
The second Mandela Challenge match takes place in Johannesburg on July 23, with South Africa needing only to win to hold on to the trophy as holders. The 31-year-old Wallaby pivot ran the show in the opening half, sticking diligently to the game plan by kicking deep.
Both teams exchanged penalty goals before Larkham slipped by prop Os Du Randt and eluded winger Bryan Habana’s covering tackle to score in the 23rd minute after the Australians had cleverly got inside the rushing Springbok defense.
