All Blacks v Italy: Five takeaways as ‘understated superstar’ Will Jordan takes the limelight and ‘signature of Dave Rennie era’ already emerges
All Blacks record-breaker Will Jordan and head coach Dave Rennie.
Following the All Blacks’ 47-17 victory over Italy at a sold-out Hnry Stadium in Wellington, here are our five takeaways from the Nations Championship clash.
The top line
For 40 minutes this was anything other than the procession history promised. Tommaso Menoncello stunned the Cake Tin inside three minutes, pouncing on turnover ball, beating the first defender with a huge hand-off and exchanging passes with Malik Faissal to finish a 55-metre strike from deep inside his own half.
New Zealand replied through Sam Darry, who burrowed over from a powerful phased response, but Tommaso Allan’s boot nudged the Azzurri back in front, and at the break the hosts led just 14-10 despite 66 per cent of first-half possession, Will Jordan’s 48th Test try off Jordie Barrett’s clever dink the only time New Zealand had genuinely broken the blue line.
But the second half belonged entirely to the All Blacks as they finally worked out a way of countering the brilliant line speed of the Azzurri defence. Cam Roigard, Ethan de Groot and Tupou Vaa’i all crossed, Jordan completed a history-making hat-trick, and Niccolo Cannone’s yellow card was upgraded to red by the bunker as Italy’s brave resistance dissolved into a 31-7 second-half deficit. Cruel on their first hour, but utterly ruthless from the hosts who go two from two in the Nations Championship.
Back to basics
Dave Rennie’s fingerprints are all over this team, and they were never clearer than in the manner New Zealand solved Italy’s superb Toulon-style blitz. For half-an-hour the visitors’ line speed ruled the contest, Nacho Brex leading, pushing hard from 13 and at one point, Ross Vintcent arriving so fast that Wallace Sititi knocked on with the flanker simply in his eyeline.
The new version of All Blacks under Rennie look more structured; they attacked through an unusually narrow 1-3-3-1, but critically, by flooding numbers around the carrier after contact, and initially it played into Italian hands, carriers running into the teeth of the rush.
Then came the decode of that impressive defence. Ruben Love, quietly impressive in his sternest tactical examination yet, began holding the pass that fraction longer, letting the blitzing defender overrun before releasing pull-back balls into the space behind. From there New Zealand were merciless, winning the collision, keeping the ball alive post-contact and flooding the vacated edges with support runners. Every try bar De Groot’s came down a flank with the extra man arriving at pace, and the numbers tell the story of that efficiency: 108 carries for 577 metres against Italy’s 59 for 222, and a second half in which the Azzurri held 62 per cent of territory yet were outscored by 24 points.
The De Groot score summed up the champions’ DNA, born from a three-minute defensive stand, a regathered kick and a 50-metre burst from debutant Josh Moorby, who caused problems all night, albeit largely against a reshuffled backline defending with 14 men, as he filled in on the wing.
That man Will Jordan
Some takeaways write themselves. Jordan’s first was pure instinct, ghosting onto Leroy Carter’s one-shouldered offload after Barrett’s chip in behind. His second and third arrived within three second-half minutes, the last of them carrying him past Doug Howlett to stand alone as New Zealand’s leading Test try-scorer of all time. Fifty tries in 56 Tests. Howlett needed 62 matches for his 49, and the strike rate is the part that ends every argument: a try every 1.12 Tests, sustained across six years, in an era of organised, analytical defence.
The full performance was as complete as the numbers, a match-high 92 metres, five defenders beaten, two turnovers won and the deserved Player of the Match award. His support lines remain the best in world rugby, his finishing is immaculate under any pressure, and at 28 he may yet put the record somewhere nobody reaches. Wellington witnessed history, and it could not have happened to a more understated superstar.
The Azzurri ledger
Italy will have wanted far more from this, and the scoreline is cruel on them. For an hour they were organised, ferocious and genuinely threatening. Menoncello was world-class on both sides of the ball, scoring the opener, winning a jailbreak turnover and beating four defenders, while his partnership with Brex – the Brexencello axis – functioned at the highest level.
Brex authored the second try with two immense carries and an offload for Leonardo Marin after winning contact against two defenders. The set-piece was superb too: three lineout steals against the All Blacks and excellent maul defence bearing the fingerprints of forwards coach Sergio Parisse, whilst Stephen Varney’s sniping and clever contestable kicking asked constant questions of Damian McKenzie.
The truth of the second half must be told as well. Italy carried a monstrous defensive load, 210 tackles to New Zealand’s 119, with Vintcent making an extraordinary 28 on his own, and no side sustains blitz line speed under that volume. But when the hosts worked out the rush, Gonzalo Quesada’s men had no second question to ask, and they collapsed under their own sheer workload and the extra effort needed after the red card.
The transition game dried up, the platform stopped producing points, and cheap ball, a dead restart and a loose kick punished in an instant, fed the very transition beast they had set out to starve. Great platform, but the black wall held, twice turning Italy over inside the 22 before half-time. Efficiency was the difference, and it was a chasm.
What comes next
The implications run deep for both camps. Italy’s week begins with a disciplinary hearing after Cannone’s yellow was upgraded to red for head contact on Roigard at a ruck. The facts deserve scrutiny: Cannone was being held in the ruck, the contact came as he attempted to release himself, and the bunker’s finding of a high degree of danger sat oddly alongside a scrum-half who barely noticed the collision.
A suspension would rob Quesada of one of his most important forwards for the rounds ahead, and the sight of Allan, 90 caps of experience and their first-choice boot, being stretchered off compounds a costly night. On a night when Luc Ramos got the pedantry right and the big calls wrong, including an unrewarded first-half hold-up over the line and a late TMO intervention that rescinded Love’s yellow on the narrowest of readings, the Azzurri are entitled to feel the margins ran against them.
For New Zealand, a bonus-point win, a record-breaker in full flight and a second consecutive week of solving a hard tactical problem in real time. France’s tempo, then Italy’s blitz, both decoded before the final whistle: that is becoming the signature of the Rennie era. Ireland at Eden Park next Saturday is a different order of examination entirely, but the Northern Conference should note that the Southern Hemisphere’s standard-bearers are five points better off and improving by the week.
READ MORE: All Blacks v Italy: Stats, Facts and more from the Nations Championship