DUNEDIN: Next year’s World Cup is undoubtedly the underlying subtext of the second test between New Zealand and England, although both sides have immediate points to prove when they face off at Otago Regional Stadium at Dunedin tomorrow.
The All Blacks, largely unchanged from the side that looked unconvincing in a last-gasp 20-15 win at Eden Park last week, have been given an opportunity to show a performance described by coach Steve Hansen as the worst in his tenure was a minor blip in their preparations for a successful world title defence.
Hansen remarked that one of the reasons why he had refused to make wholesale changes from last week’s team was because had he dropped everyone who played badly, he would not have been able to field a side for the game.
“We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact we did win the test but at the same time they’re very proud people who want to play a game we can all be proud of and last week we weren’t proud of our performance,” Hansen told reporters in Dunedin yesterday.
For tomorrow’s second match in Melbourne, the Hulking centre Mathieu Bastareaud makes a long-awaited Australia debut in France’s second test against the Wallabies, five years after an embarrassing scandal denied him his first match Down Under.
As a callow 20-year-old on his first southern hemisphere tour in 2009, Bastareaud was set to play a one-off test in Sydney after playing the All Blacks, but flew home from New Zealand with facial injuries, claiming he had been attacked when returning to his Wellington hotel after a night out.
A subsequent media storm questioned security in the New Zealand capital two
years out from the World Cup and prompted Prime Minister John Key to issue an apology, but CCTV footage later showed Bastareaud returning to his hotel unharmed.
The bulky back changed his story, saying he had sustained his injuries by drunkenly falling on a desk in his hotel room and had concocted the false account of his assault because he was scared of the fallout from team management. REUTERS
