Undermanned All Blacks hold on in thriller

All Black players show their delight as the final whistle is blown at Twickenham this morning. Picture / Reuters

The All Blacks survived the final 23 minutes with 14 men as they held off a mighty England forward performance to win a memorable rugby test 23-19 at Twickenham today.

Sinbinnings to prop Tony Woodcock, his replacement Neemia Tialata and flanker Chris Masoe by Irish referee Alan Lewis gave England an opening but they couldn't ram it home as the watertight All Blacks defence held.

The All Blacks scored a try each to captain Tana Umaga and hooker Keven Mealamu to just one from England.

Both were set up by first five-eighth Daniel Carter who was named man of the match and missed just one of his six kicks at goal.

The four point victory brought the All Blacks within one win of just their second Grand Slam leading into next weekend's test against Scotland in Edinburgh .

Having strolled through their earlier matches against Wales and Ireland, the All Blacks were put under pressure for the first time all tour by a fired-up England who matched them up front.

The hosts rocked the All Blacks with the opening try to captain and No 8 Martin Corry in the third minute from a lineout drive, after Aaron Mauger's attempted clearance was charged down by halfback Matt Dawson.

A jittery New Zealand made a few handling errors but finally got a roll on and levelled the scores in the 16th minute.

Carter ghosted through a gap, past Corry's attempted tackle and slipped a borderline short pass to Umaga who went over under the crossbar. Carter's conversion made it 7-7.

Both kickers traded penalties before the All Blacks blew a chance when Byron Kelleher burst through and put Umaga away.

He was tackled just a metre short by Ben Cohen but Masoe fumbled the final pass over the line in Dawson's tackle.

The score became 13-10 after half an hour when Corry was penalised for killing the ball and Carter kicked the 30m penalty .

The killer try came five minutes after the break when Carter again punched through the England defence, Mils Muliaina and Mauger handling, before Rodney So'oialo was tackled 1m short.

From the ruck, Mealamu drove over to score with Tony Woodcock and Chris Jack in support, and Carter's conversion made it 20-10.

Another penalty each made it 23-13 before England began to rumble back and held much of the possession when referee Lewis lost patience with the All Blacks after issuing a warning to both sides.

In the 57th minute Woodcock, after earlier being penalised for a late tackle on England playmaker Charlie Hodgson, was sinbinned after pulling down a maul.

It meant flanker Chris Masoe, a late callup for Richie McCaw, had to depart to allow Tialata on, but 10 minutes later Tialata was yellow carded himself for killing the ball in a ruck.

As Hodgson narrowed the gap to 23-19 with his fourth penalty, the All Blacks were down to 13 men but Woodcock returned in the next minute.

Then Masoe, who was off the field for 20 minutes through no fault of his own, was binned for playing the ball on the ground with three minutes left.

England launched a wave of final attacks but the All Blacks' defence was outstanding and held to the end.

- NZPA