A series of errors by the All Blacks and the referee contributed to New Zealand's defeat, writes CHRIS RATTUE.
The All Blacks began to lose their grip on the Bledisloe Cup test in Wellington with a botched move between two of that city's favourite rugby sons.
Christian Cullen and Tana Umaga are one of the great double acts in world rugby. But as millions of television viewers around the world watched the clock tick towards 80 minutes, Cullen scooped an awful forward pass to his Wellington team-mate, who promptly dropped it anyway, and Australia gained vital possession.
At that stage of the game, the All Blacks, who were leading 23-21, should have tightened up. But the mistake heralded a helter-skelter final five minutes spiked with errors from the players and referee Jonathan Kaplan, which culminated in the great Australian lock and captain John Eales kicking the match-winning goal.
From the Australian scrum following the Cullen-Umaga botch-up, replacement halfback Byron Kelleher knocked down a Joe Roff kick and Australia had another scrum.
Kaplan then produced two errors on the same play. Tony Brown charged down a Stephen Larkham kick and No 8 Ron Cribb, who was clearly offside, led the chase for the ball and kicked it downfield.
Kaplan should then have awarded New Zealand a penalty in front of the Australian posts when Roff slid to the ground to retrieve Cribb's kick and failed to release the ball.
Australian lock David Giffin then clearly joined the tackled ball area from the wrong side. Under the laws introduced this year, which have been largely successful in clearing up the confusion over the tackle ball area, players apart from the tackler must enter the tackle-ball area from the direction of their goal-line.
Giffin's action was a more flagrant breach of the rule than Craig Dowd would later commit to give Eales the penalty chance.
Instead of a penalty in front of the posts, the All Blacks had a scrum and referee Kaplan raised two fingers and told the players there were two minutes left.
As expected, Cribb drove from the back and Dowd burrowed towards the line but could not get the ball down for a try.
The All Blacks came within a whisker of getting the crucial try when Cullen chipped for the corner but the ball just beat Umaga and the covering Chris Latham into touch-in-goal.
Paul then tried a quick dropout and was smothered into touch by Dowd, giving the All Blacks a lineout throw as captain Todd Blackadder, arms apart and pleading, tried to signal to Kaplan that time was up.
The referee said play on, but it was New Zealand's throw into the lineout. Norm Maxwell appeared to have Mark Hammett's throw in his grasp but lost control, and the ball landed on the Australian side. That gave Stephen Larkham the chance to clear the ball from just outside his 20m line to almost the New Zealand 20m line, where the ball bounced out, two minutes and six seconds after Kaplan said there were two minutes left to play.
Blackadder, Dowd and Maxwell all contributed their thoughts on the right lineout tactic in a brief, intense, debate, and Hammett then threw short to a confused All Black lineout.
Mark Connors stretched out an arm and dragged the ball back to his side and the Australians were able to crash the ball up through Daniel Herbert. Roff, crucially, slipped half past Cullen, who dragged the Australian wing down.
Dowd clearly joined the tackled-ball area from the side rather than his own goal-line and Kaplan blew for the penalty. It came precisely three minutes after the referee had signalled to the players that there were two minutes left. The television running time (not the official time) showed the second half had run 84m 14s when the final penalty was awarded, and at that moment the half had actually run 46m 09s.
Kaplan said he used his discretionary powers to add on time to make up for what he called All Blacks' time wastage at lineouts.
Kaplan spoke to both teams on Friday to warn them about time-wasting.
"They wanted me to be positive. I said to them they have to be positive too," he said yesterday.
"When there's a lineout they all get together and discuss it for a while, then the hooker comes back to get a clarification from the jumpers. That's not positive - that's wasting time.
"I had a stopwatch and the time was correct. No doubt about it. I played 80 minutes of rugby.
"In fact, I could have gone on a bit more. If you count up the amount of time they used in the lineout it's six minutes. I could have been a policeman and penalised them each time for wasting time."
All Black coach Wayne Smith had no complaints about Kaplan, although he rejected his charge that the All Blacks were time-wasting.
"We're the last ones to slow things down. We look at trying to fatigue teams," he said. "We said to him that we didn't even want to stop for injuries unless it was a front-rower hurt.
"We had our opportunities and we didn't nail them. I'm gutted."
Regular kicker Stirling Mortlock having been replaced, Eales came up for the penalty attempt 10m in from touch and just outside the 20m line and was mobbed by his team-mates after the ball flew between the uprights. Kaplan immediately signalled fulltime and was pelted with missiles from the crowd.
Maxwell and All Black doctor John Mayhew escorted him from the field.
"Two security guys came up and said to me to hang on and not go back into the tunnel straight away, so I just held back and then Norm and John Mayhew came and walked with me," said Kaplan.
"These sorts of things happen all the time.
"Sure, it's the first time for me in seven tests, but I don't think much of it."
A partly filled plastic bottle landed on his chest.
Wellington Rugby Union chief executive David White apologised to Kaplan for the crowd's behaviour.
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