Rugby Union

Yeah I said after the two England games that the ABs were pretty lucky to get away with 2 wins and could easily go 0-4 on the road against SA, Ire & Eng this year. I still thought they should have had enough to put the Argentinians away at home but yet again they played a muddled, disjointed game and had no answer to the rush defence. Couple that with a very soft 2nd half forward performance and they were deserved losers.

Honestly, unlike the home loss to Argentina under Foster this performance I think was even worse. Argentina 2 years ago played incredibly; tonight they just played well. Good, structured rugby - did the basics very well, and had some interesting variety in attack plus from broken play were incredibly dangerous.

Yet again, the All Blacks defensive system this year was found to be very porous and they got no better physicality from Blackadder than they did with Finau against England. When Sititi came on they pulled Papali'i off and left Blackadder on who promptly gave up two penalties. The Sotutu fans will be even more aggrieved that he was overlooked for that performance.

The NZ public will probably bag McKenzie but I dont think there was a lot he could have done, Perenara's service was pretty slow for the first 55 minutes, and while things sped up a lot with Ratima on for the last 20 minutes the ABs forwards were just completely outclassed.

I was at the Wellington Stadium with my Scottish partner & in-laws for the 2011 World Cup when Argentina beat Scotland and while we were all gutted to lose that, the Argentinian fans that night were amazing. They were just as incredible tonight - so much passion, so much fun. I hate losing, but I love the joy they get out of beating us :)