Following the All Blacks’ 52-26 victory against Wales at the Principality Stadium, here’s our key winners and losers from the Autumn Nations Series fixture in Cardiff.
Winners
Louis Rees-Zammit
NFL’s loss is very much Welsh rugby’s gain now that the 24-year-old abandoned American football to rekindle his first love. If things had worked out in the States for the winger, he would have been in Arizona this weekend for the Jaguars’ latest regular-season outing.
Instead, he was strutting his stuff at the Principality and reminding beleaguered Welsh fans that they still have talent capable of not only getting in through the turnstiles and up off their seats and cheering. There was a below-capacity 68,388 at Saturday’s match, so box-office attractions are badly needed.
He stood up and was counted last weekend during the Japan crisis, and did so again with his simple but so very effective play that got Wales believing in themselves in the first half against the All Blacks shortly after they had gone behind to an early score.
Words can’t do justice to the adrenaline shot that his aerial win versus Damian McKenzie generated, but his winning back of possession resulted in the opening Wales try, giving his team’s fans hope that not everything is terrible in 2025.
It isn’t, as later proven by Rees-Zammit’s superb dive at the corner to score with a one-handed finish on 76 minutes. That was a genuine career highlights reel moment.
Lineout variations
World Rugby seem to be on a mission to ruin the spectacle of the rugby set-piece. For years, they have been meddling with the scrum and what they have done with the lineout, where it is now play-on for a crooked throw if the opposition don’t put up a jumper, is another example of their daft tinkering.
We saw in Cardiff how the lineout can be a beautifully used attacking weapon, full of intelligence. We had two lovely first-half examples that led to very different scores. Dewi Lake showed super ambition with his throw out the back to the middle of the pitch to ignite the move for one of Tom Rogers’ first-half scores for Wales.
Then, before the opening period closed, there was the snappy, low Samisoni Taukei’aho throw to the ever-impressive Fabian Holland that resulted in the Tamaiti Williams’ try from the phase that followed the short-lived maul.
Now, the variations weren’t always perfect. Look at the mess Will Jordan made when ball off the top from Holland early in the second half initially eluded him before he recalibrated and managed to get over the line for a score that was ruled out.
Tom Rogers
Test level try hat-tricks are to be cherished. Ireland fans were raving about the impact made last weekend by Mack Hansen, as his hat-trick in his first appearance as a starting full-back was central to the record dismissal of the Wallabies. Here, the Welsh left winger grabbed the headlines, completing his hat-trick three minutes into the second half.
For someone who had only scored two tries in his 12 previous international appearances, you’d imagine there needed to be some mad jazz involved in his accomplishment, but there wasn’t. Instead, it was simply a situation where a winger held his width and was ready when the ball came to him.
Rogers didn’t have to go chasing the action. Instead, his patience was royally rewarded. There is a lesson in that for all aspiring wingers. You can achieve remarkable things, such as a hat-trick against the All Blacks, by keeping your game simple. Very well played.
Sevu Reece
The All Blacks were certainly in need of second-half gas with the Welsh still clinging on and still being a nuisance, and a crucial point of difference was provided from the bench by the 28-year-old.
Scott Robertson was let down by his subs last weekend in London, but in the winger they had a gem whose nose for the try line remains impressive.
He wasn’t potent during the build-up to a Rugby Championship where his involvement was limited, but he was deadly in providing the All Blacks with two tries in 11 minutes to punish the Welsh for their indiscipline.
A shoutout too for Caleb Clarke. His two-try contribution wasn’t shabby either. Yes, the All Blacks’ overall display wasn’t at all convincing, they they still can get the ball wide and have finishers do their job.
Ruben Love, the rookie full-back, also deserves kudos. He plays with a smile on his face, with a step and acceleration to savour in the try he scored.
Losers
All Blacks’ aerial game
It’s been a recurring theme of Robertson’s All Blacks; their aerial game is woefully inconsistent, and it was that way again in Cardiff. We thought an improvement was in the offing when Jordan’s catch on two minutes on halfway, which helped them win the offside penalty that secured the territory for Clarke’s opener, but we were soon proven wrong.
Too many aerial kicks were lame (even their kick-throughs were often dire, going by the Dafydd Jenkins block that forced a possession turnover and led to a try). Too many of their jumps weren’t aggressive enough to get the win when a player went up.
Now, there will be Kiwi fans who will say that the Rieko Ioane try that marked the beginning of the end for Wales came from a kick, but the truth was it originally didn’t have the accuracy to find Jordan and it needed a kind bounce for Ioane to benefit in the tidy up.
With their tour now over and their Grand Slam ambition having fallen one win short on the back of a Rugby Championship that left much to be desired, it’s perhaps time for Robertson to think outside the box. It was 18 years ago when Jake White’s World Cup-winning Springboks brought in a retired Irish Gaelic footballer from Kerry whose whirlwind tour is still fondly remembered.
Mickey Ned O’Sullivan’s eight-day tour of the five Super 14 franchises, as they were at the time, involved explaining the rudiments of catching a ball above the head, enabling the likes of a then 22-year-old Bryan Habana to be more explosive in the air. This tuition brought in from a different sport worked. Maybe it’s time Robertson thought about doing something similar.
Welsh indiscipline
Steve Tandy’s team can’t say they weren’t warned. The match was 24 minutes old when referee Hollie Davidson brought a halt to play to have a word with Welsh skipper Lake after a penalty from Alex Mann at a breakdown became their fifth infringement.
This naughtiness didn’t prevent them from being competitive; they were easy on the eye with the way they enthusiastically got stuck in and asked multiple questions of the All Blacks.
However, at the most critical juncture when they needed to keep their cool, they cracked. The deficit was only 21-31 and the result still in the balance when Gareth Thomas, a sub who had only come on six minutes earlier, was yellow carded for his terrible tackle tech when going low into Fletcher Newell without a wrap.
Within a minute, the All Blacks had punished them with a try. But the Welsh didn’t learn, judging by the yellow later brandished to Taine Plumtree for his tangle with Jordan. Wales couldn’t afford self-inflicted wounds, but here were two that really hurt them.
Leinster
It’s a big deal for the Irish province to have secured the signature of Ioane, after the New Zealander decided he fancied an overseas adventure and give Super Rugby Pacific a miss before linking back up with the All Blacks next July.
The problem is that, unlike Jordie Barrett who arrived in Dublin last December with no airs and graces to immediately get stuck and deliver with some good winter displays, Ioane hasn’t been in the groove on tour with the All Blacks and looks like a fellow in need of a long rest – not more rugby.
Barrett didn’t help deliver Leinster the desired Champions Cup title through no fault of his own, but there are surely concerns that the bang for buck promised by the seven-month recruitment of Ioane won’t be a hit.
Yes, he did score against the Welsh, but it was an opportunity gifted to him. There wasn’t much else about his game to enthuse, and with Irish fans still mindful that it was Ioane who said something not very nice to Johnny Sexton after the 2023 Rugby World Cup quarter-final in Paris, an intriguing settling-in period awaits.