The All Blacks take a comfortable 54-16 victory over Wales at Cardiff's Principality Stadium. Video / Sky Sport
Wales coach Wayne Pivac lamented some critical lapses – as well as a lack of test match fitness – in his side's 54-16 hammering by the All Blacks this morning.
The depleted Welsh side put up a decent fight for more than an hour, before conceding four tries in thefinal quarter as the scoreline blew out, eventually equalling the record margin between the two sides for matches in Cardiff.
While New Zealand were clearly dominant across the contest, the Six Nations champions were left to rue some crucial errors, which gave the All Blacks momentum whenever Wales looked like gaining a foothold.
For Pivac the pivotal moment came just after their 60th-minute try to Johnny Williams, with the capacity crowd roaring and the margin reduced to 12 points.
But Wales fluffed their lines from the kickoff, pinged for being offside as Rhys Priestland cleared from deep, with Dalton Papalii forcing his way over from the resultant lineout.
"It was a disappointing scoreline," said Pivac. "Getting a try, getting back to 28-16 and with about 18 minutes to go it was really important that we took the kickoff and exited well.
"[We were] back in the game to a degree, got the crowd behind us and we gave away what you could describe as a very silly penalty. Those are the fine margins against these good sides; you give away a penalty for being 20 metres in front of the kicker - inexcusable - and that's seven points. That was game over at that point."
Pivac admitted his team "fell off a big cliff" in the final quarter, struggling to deal with the All Blacks' relentless ball movement and offloading capability, as fatigue set in.
"Clearly the last 20 minutes showed a difference in fitness levels," said Pivac.
"You are talking about a side that has been playing international rugby on the road now for a couple of months [and] our boys have come off a handful of club games so we have got some work to do in that area."
Jonathan Davies and Wales were well beaten by the All Blacks in Cardiff. Photo / Getty
New Zealand managed their trademark strong finish, helped by strong bench impact.
"You know it is coming because the All Blacks have been doing it for many, many years," said Pivac. "We needed to be in the game, playing well in that last 20 minutes [but] silly mistakes, an intercept, a couple of well-taken tries [changed that]. They came on and added impact with their subs and they did that well."
Given the long list of top-line players absent through injury or unavailability, Wales competed well in the first half.
They enjoyed periods of possession and put the All Blacks under pressure occasionally, though their set piece was poor.
Three times in the first period they made a mess of things on their own lineout throw, as New Zealand disrupted to good effect.
They were also hampered by the loss of captain Alun Wyn Jones in the 20th minute, followed by Ross Moriaty just before halftime, which saw almost 200 caps leave the field.
But Pivac was making no excuses, regarding his undermanned team.
"We need to move on," said Pivac. "We have known about it for a long time and we were excited with the squad we had. There were learnings for some, some played very well."
Pivac had no major qualms with the officiating, which was generally solid, but questioned how Beauden Barrett had avoided the sin bin early in the match, after a deliberate knock on near halfway to defuse a promising attack, as Wales had an overlap with the cover scrambling.
"We would expect a yellow card if it was one of our players, and when you give a penalty for that offence we expect the yellow to follow," said Pivac. "But the match officials do what they need to do, with the information they had at the time and that was the decision they came up with."
