Italy, certainly, and Uruguay will pose sterner challenges than Namibia could muster as the All Blacks aim for the knockout rounds and beyond. De Groot’s dismissal, for an upright tackle with a tucked arm on Adriaan Booysen, will lead to a frustrating ban for the loosehead prop. Even so, an 11-try rout represented a largely satisfactory response to New Zealand’s loss to France.
Ethan de Groot, Dalton Papali’i, David Havili, Caleb Clarke and Rieko Ioane all made the scoresheet and the All Blacks also showed steel in defence to keep Namibia scoreless. De Groot’s impending ban, though, is an irritating setback.
All Blacks run rampant, de Groot tackle ‘reckless’
Andy Bull, The Guardian
Death, taxes and Namibia being thrashed by the All Blacks. Namibia have now played 24 World Cup games, and lost every one of them. They are a proud team, amateurs in the large part, working on a shoestring budget and desperate for their first victory. Battered 52-8 by Italy in the first round, now 71-3 by New Zealand, they have to play France next, for goodness sake, before they get to their last game, and the one they’re really targeting: Uruguay. You wonder what sort of shape they are going to be in by that stage.
As for the All Blacks, it was a slick performance, and means they’ve gathered a little momentum as they roll on into their next game against Italy, but otherwise, won’t have learned too much from this turkey shoot. They will be annoyed, too, that it has cost them Ethan de Groot, who was given a red card for a reckless tackle. As a going contest, it lasted eight minutes.
All Blacks win mismatch in a canter
Mark Palmer, The Times
After such a hot and humid start to this World Cup, there was novelty in finding Toulouse lashed by torrential rain for a time here. In every other regard, however, this was exactly what we expected as a Damian McKenzie-inspired New Zealand bounced back from their opening-night defeat by France to win this mismatch at a canter.
The foul conditions were probably the only thing that stopped us having to thumb the history books for record wins, but the 11-try All Blacks are off and running after that unimpressive display against the hosts.
Roigard sends statement to New Zealand selectors
Liam Napier, NZ Herald
Cam Roigard seized his chance to alter the halfback pecking order as the All Blacks predictably pummelled Namibia with elements of sweet and sour to notch their first win of this Rugby World Cup campaign.
Roigard, in his maiden test start, had the most to gain from the All Blacks second pool match on a cooler evening in Toulouse. He wasted no time delivering the sweet with a man of the match displaying to send a statement to the selectors that he must be retained in the first-choice squad from here on.
Red casts a dark cloud over confidence restoring match
Gregor Paul, NZ Herald
As an exercise in cheering the nation up, the All Blacks’ annihilation of Namibia at the Rugby World Cup proved entirely satisfying and bang on brief.
It was a nice little confidence restorer: an 80-minute chance to strut around the playground and pocket a bit of lunch money by doing nothing other than looking a bit hard.
Ethan de Groot made the mistake of taking his role as the schoolyard bully too seriously and was red-carded for a high tackle that may have pronounced consequences for him and the All Blacks given that he’ll inevitably be facing a suspension.
His sending-off cast quite the dark cloud over what was otherwise a reasonably happy night for the All Blacks who would feel they got just about all they wanted from the game.
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