All Blacks overcome spirited Canada

New Zealand put in a mediocre performance to beat a spirited Canada side 64-13 in front of a sold-out Waikato Stadium in Hamilton on Saturday.

The Canucks put up a good fight and were just six points adrift when New Zealand hooker Andrew Hore went over on cusp of half-time to give the home team a 26-13 half-time lead.

The floodgates duly opened after the break and Canada were forced into some tackling practice which certainly needs some more attention.

ALl Blacks fly-half Dan Carter scored a hat-trick of tries on the night and pocketed a personal tally of 29 points to overtake Andrew Merhtens’s All Black record for points in a Test match.

Carter, who missed last week’s 61-10 win over France with an ankle injury, kicked seven conversions from 10 attempts on his return.

Canada full-back Mike Pyke ran almost the length of the field to score a lone intercept try while wing James Pritchard landed the conversion and two penalties before the visitors ran out of steam in the second half.

In a game the All Blacks had little to gain from, the good news was that no more New Zealand locks or players succumbed to injury ahead of what could a testing Tri-Nations campaign.

The All Blacks were scratchy and at times woeful against Canada, making far too many uncharacteristic errors.

Although the home team scored 10 tries to one, they were left wondering what could have been with the All Blacks struggling with their combinations and rhythm.

Huge question marks also remain over the New Zealand performance at ruck and maul time. The ball carriers were isolated forcing turnovers on far too many occasions.

New Zealand coach Graham Henry will have to work on his team’s lack of precision and patience heading into their Tri-Nations campaign that kicks off next weekend against South Africa in Durban.

However, it was a good night for the All Blacks’ debutants. New boy John Schwalger celebrated his first test with a try and lock Ross Filipo survived a late injury scare to complete a solid performance.

It was certainly a game of two halves. The first belonging to the Canadians and the second was all New Zealand’s.

Winger Sitivini Sivivatu waltzed through the Canadian forward pack to score in the opening minutes of the game that would certainly be rated as his easiest of his 17 Test tries.

Sivivatu then turned provider for the second try with a precise cut-out pass floated over Mils Muliaina and Aaron Mauger to enable Luke McAlister to cross over in the left-hand corner with ease.

McAlister’s try gave the capacity crowd of 25,000 a reason to believe they would see a try-scoring bonanza.

However, someone forgot to tell the visitors they were not meant to be playing as well as they did, constantly disrupting the All Blacks usual game flow wherever they could.

The Canucks’ highlight of the match came when tall full-back Mike Pyke intercepted a pass from Carter meant for Mils Muliaina to race 90 metres down the right-hand touchline to score.

Sivivatu put in a dedicated chase, but the Montauban full-back had enough steam in his engine to go all the way.

Pritchard, who opened Canada’s account with a 14th minute penalty, added the extras to allow Canada to narrow the margin to 12-10 in the 22nd minute, hushing the capacity crowd.

Schwalger was able to save the All Blacks some embarrassment by diving over in the corner thanks to a well-timed McAlister pass.

Carter kicked the touchline conversion to make the score 19-10, but Canada were full of confidence at this stage and fought back to earn a penalty that Pritchard slotted with ease.

Nobody could have guessed the visitors would be trailing the All Blacks by six points with half-time just a couple of minutes away.

With the half-time siren sounded, Canada spirits were shattered when Hore powered over from a blindside move to give the hosts scoreline some respect.

Carter’s conversion left the score reading 26-13 in favour of the All Blacks at half-time, but the Canucks would have the field with their heads held high – the All Blacks on the other hand trudged off the field in disbelief.

Carter, after a quiet first half, came into his own after the resumption of play. The Crusaders pivot scored his first converted try a minute after the resumption of play in a blind-side move that was helped along by some abysmal tackling by the Canada defenders.

His second was a solo effort when he beat three defenders after the defence was stretched to its limits and he crossed for a third time taking the final pass from Peeri Weepu after a long build-up from a tighthead in the scrum.

Somewhere in between Carter’s first and second touchdown, flanker Chris Masoe managed to crash over for his first Test try in an All Blacks shirt – but his all-round performance raised a few eyebrows and may have played himself out of contention for a trip to South Africa.

Carter’s third try brought on the half century for the All Blacks and the Canadians missed tackles were starting to take its toll – 24 missed tackles by the 60th minute.

Winger Doug Howlett had a quiet night, but managed to cruise over and add another try to his impressive all-time try-scoring list thanks to some unselfish work by the hard working Jerry Collins.

Replacement Rico Gear, who came on at centre for McAlister finished had the last laugh after he was handed an easy run in after skipper Reuben Thorne forced a turnover in the middle of the field.

The ball was popped up to Gear who casually sprinted 50 metres to round off an average day at the office for the All Blacks.

Man of the match: The entire Canada team can give themselves a pat on the back for a tremendous first half display. For New Zealand, debutants Ross Filipo and John Schwalger played as if it were their 50th Test. Jerry Collins was exhausting to watch as he again worked hard all match. Aaron Mauger did his bit in the backline, but our vote goes to hat-trick hero Dan Carter who single handedly tore the Canada team to pieces. He had a slow first half and threw that intercepted pass, but the All Blacks number 10 was instrumental with the boot and showed us once again why he is regarded as the best fly-half in the world.

Moment of the match: This has to go to Canada’s full-back Mike Pyke who ran almost the full length of the field to score from his well-timed interception. The try brought the Canucks into the game and left all viewers watching around the globe looking twice at the scoreboard. It will also be a moment Pyke will cherish for the rest of his life.

Villain of the match: All good clean fun, no award.

The scorers:

For New Zealand:

Tries: Sivivatu, McAlister, Schwalger, Hore, Carter 3, Masoe, Howlett, Gear
Cons: Carter 7

For Canada:
Tries: Pyke
Cons: Pritchard
Pens: Pritchard 2

The teams:

New Zealand: 15 Mils Muliaina, 14 Doug Howlett, 13 Luke McAlister, 12 Aaron Mauger, 11 Sitiveni Sivivatu, 10 Daniel Carter, 9 Byron Kelleher, 8 Jerry Collins, 7 Chris Masoe, 6 Reuben Thorne (c), 5 Ross Filipo, 4 Troy Flavell, 3 Neemia Tialata, 2 Andrew Hore, 1 John Schwalger.
Replacements: 16 Keven Mealamu, 17 Carl Hayman, 18 Rodney So’oialo, 19 Richie McCaw, 20 Piri Weepu, 21 Rico Gear, 22 Leon MacDonald.

Canada: 15 Mike Pyke, 14 Justin Mensah-Coker, 13 Craig Culpan, 12 David Spicer, 11 James Pritchard, 10 Ryan Smith, 9 Morgan Williams (c), 8 Sean-Michael Stephen, 7 Stan Mckeen, 6 Colin Yukes, 5 Mike Burak, 4 Luke Tait, 3 Scott Franklin, 2 Pat Riordan, 1 Kevin Tkachuk.
Replacements: 16 Aaron Carpenter, 17 Dan Pletch, 18 Mike Pletch, 19 Josh Jackson, 20 Adam Kleeberger, 21 Dean van Camp, 22 Ed Fairhurst.

Referee: Christophe Berdos (France)
Touch judges: Craig Joubert (South Africa), George Ayoub (Australia)
Television match official: Paul Marks (Australia)
Assessor: Bob Francis (New Zealand)