Elliott Smith: Newstalk ZB rugby commentator on the All Blacks beating out Italy 47-17 in Wellington

The All Blacks have overpowered Italy with a dominant second half to claim a 47-17 Nations Championship win in Wellington.

The hosts' 14-10 lead at the break blew out with 5 second half tries, including a hat-trick to Will Jordan as he became the All Blacks leading test try-scorer.

Wing Josh Moorby and loose forward Anton Segner debuted off the bench.

Newstalk ZB rugby commentator Elliott Smith recapped the 'incredible' action in Wellington.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB had a scratchy win for the All Blacks last
night forty seven seventeen over Italy and Wellington, but there
was one shining highlight.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Out on the right hand slight Well Jordan from Jorny
Parren pass back. He's history and Henry Stadium. Fifty tries,
fifty tries for Will Jordan. He stands alone. It's the
All Blash greate Trylaura z B.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Lead rugby commentator Elliott Smith called the match and joins me. Now,
good morning, Elliot, Morning Francisco. Do you mind if we
start with Will Jordan a highlight of last night's match,
surpassing Doug Hawlett's all time try scoring record. Just how
good is Will Jordan.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
He's exceptional when you think about the players that he's
just in the last couple of weeks Doug hell At
last night, Sir Joe Rocasoco and Christian Cullen in the
last two weeks to move from forty five tries up
to fifty and to stand alone. We've had some great
wingers through the years and not quite ready to say
that Will Jordan stands above in terms of a wider context,

(01:21):
but certainly in a try scoring context, there are and
have been few better than him in terms of his
finishing abilities, and since he debuted in twenty twenty has
been ever present in the All Blacks.

Speaker 5 (01:32):
As strike raiders. Is quite incredible. Fifty six tests he
who had head.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
Into last night now in fifty seven and fifty tries
to match is quite incredible what he's able to do.
So look, he's ever present. He's a dangerous player whether
he's at fullback or on the right wing as he
was last night. And yeah, we'll stand alone. And I
don't think he's quite done yet. I mean he's only
twenty eight. He's still got plenty of time to potentially
add more tries to that number.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Elliot's a good score line in the end. But it
was a bit of a scratchy performance last night, wasn't it.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
It was scratch it was, and the All Blacks were
struggling to get on top at half time and at
half time they came out scored those four twick tries
after halftime, then went back to their scratchy ways, not
helped by long stoppage and the second spell for Tomaso
Allen and his injury to his chest or stern him

(02:26):
and a couple of other stoppages that took the momentum
out of the game, but the All Blacks weren't quite
able to replicate the fire they started the second half
with for the rest of that second spell. They were
clunky in the first half, a lot of eras defensively,
a couple of really poor.

Speaker 5 (02:41):
Misreads, so a lot to work on.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
Still out of that All Blacks performance, I guess if
you're a glass half full person, you probably go look
what they can do. In the space of thirteen fourteen
minutes to start the second spell, they took the game
completely away from Italy and ended it as a contest.
If your glass half empty, you probably go look that
there's a lot to work on. They were clunky for
large periods of the game and couldn't get over an
Italian side right at the end of this season who

(03:05):
were disappoint against Italy last week. So I've probably sit
somewhere in between going, yeah, there was some good patches,
there were some not so good patches, So yeah, probably
about glass half full, glass half somewhere right there.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
But it was good to see them adjusting to the
play in front of them, coming up with a solution,
trying something different. And I wonder whether that is what
we are seeing under Dave Ringy a bit of a
difference with the All Blacks.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
Yeah, I think it's a positive. I think perhaps in
the last couple of years have been fourteen ten a
half time, the All Blacks may have struggled to get
their way.

Speaker 5 (03:37):
Out of the whole.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
They probably still would have won, but it wouldn't have
perhaps been as they convincing on the school board as
what we saw last night.

Speaker 5 (03:44):
So they did find a way out of it.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
And I think, you know, there's some key players there
that stood up the leaders in this team, like Jordi
Barrett I thought was exceptional in the second spell Will
Jordan being another one that just knew when to flick
the switch and take the game away from Italy. And
that's probably a good sign that the senior players and
this team can problem solve and figured their way out
out of a bit of trouble.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
What about the refereeing last night, Elliott? Did the TMO
get involved too much?

Speaker 5 (04:12):
Far too much?

Speaker 4 (04:13):
This is becoming a blice on world rugby and it
wasn't just last night's game, it was Australia, France that
followed it and Japan Island that I watched as well.
Tomo interventions are becoming the bane of international rugby. World
Rugby's I think lost control of the spectacle. They seem
to forget that it is a spectacle first, and people

(04:34):
come along to watch the product. They don't come to
watch a fine tuned law seminar. And that's where Wald
Rugby needs to fix things up. They don't seem to
have any want or desire to do so, but as
a productor, I think World Rugby have lost their way
with the amount of TMO interventions. I mean, I'd completely
get rid of it if I was honest and used
to live with the on field referee who made some

(04:56):
mistakes last night but was being guided by his puppeteer
and the TMO box who just you know, is watching
all these TV feeds. Of course he's going to make
interventions when you see from fifty five angles. I just
think it's become a blight on the game and it
made for a really hard to watch contest when you've

(05:17):
got Luke Ramos in the middle of the referee and
there's Twelfth Test last night being guided by some bloke
who's watching a million TV screens up up in an office.
I just think, yeah, Rugby needs to change. They need
to get some ways of dealing with the TMO because
they're struggling to captivate the market with the number of
interventions that they've got currently.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
They're going to need to be the All Blacks are
going to need to be better next week against Ireland.
What will the focus be on this week?

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Elliott?

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Look, I think they need to focus on both sides
of the ball. Their defense was certainly better than it
was against France last week, but there's still a lot
of times were not as connected as they probably could
be in some of those defensive patterns. Again, another week
may help that attack wise. A couple of times it
broke down they probably gave the wrong pass again, which

(06:04):
is France a little bit. So hopefully another week of
being in camp tidies up some of that. But there
were a lot of erarors last night and they gave
away a lot of penalties as well, especially in early
run match. So out of it they've got a lot
to colm, which is probably a good thing that it's
not just a complete blowout, but there's certainly ye some

(06:26):
improvements to be made against Ireland, who will be played
the final game of this season. Nothing to lose mentality
from them and that Eden Park record goes on the
line once again.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Thank you so much, Elliott. That was Elliott Smith, as
it'd be, lead rugby commentator.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
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