France beat Tonga to enter quarter-finals as All Blacks thrash Namibia
New Zealand’s Shannon Frizell (left) and Namibia’s JC Greyling jump for the ball during their World Cup Pool B match in Tokyo on Sunday. Agence France-Presse
First-half tries by Virimi Vakatawa and man-of-the-match Alivereti Raka were enough to secure the win for Les Bleus against a spirited Tongan side that competed throughout a tense encounter at the Kumamoto Stadium.
Tonga topped the try-scoring count three-two against a French side that again produced a stop-start performance as they did in their first two games against Argentina and USA.
“We suffered again for yet another match,” grumbled French coach Jacques Brunel.
“We started well, we missed a lot of chances to stretch the gap. We missed three or four chances and then we tightened up. There was tension, errors, we cannot manage the second half, especially at the start,” added an unhappy Brunel.
In the end, it was three penalties by Romain Ntamack that got France through to a quarter-final likely against either Wales or Australia from Pool D — although Fiji still have a mathematical chance of a last-eight spot.
For the first six minutes, the famous French flair was on full display as they raced to a 10-0 lead, roared on by a loud chorus of “allez Les Bleus” from the crowd.
That was to prove an important buffer as Tonga fought back to trail by only three points at 17-14 early in the second half, the heavier Pacific island pack troubling France at scrum time.
When Ntamack penalties extended the French lead to nine points, the tireless Tongans rallied to score a third try right at the death.
While England have motored through their first three matches, an injury-hit France have found life more difficult and Brunel selected his third half-back pairing in as many matches with Baptiste Serin at scrum-half linking up with Ntamack.
Brunel also made 11 changes from the last outing against USA to take the field with arguably the strongest available line-up.
An experimental New Zealand side recovered from a sticky start and two yellow cards to hammer Namibia 71-9 and move one step closer to finishing top of their pool on Sunday.
Namibia battled to within a point at 10-9 after half an hour before the two-time defending champions accelerated away to eclipse their 58-14 victory over the Welwitschias at the 2015 World Cup.
It put the All Blacks top of Pool B after three games, with one more to come against Italy next Saturday as the quarter-finals beckon. Second-placed South Africa round off their pool matches against Canada on Tuesday.
Namibia are the World Cup’s undisputed whipping boys, after never winning a game in the competition and suffering embarrassing defeats like 142-0 against Australia in 2003.
The last time they beat a Tier One nation was Ireland in 1991, but they turned up to play at a cool, windswept Tokyo Stadium and were first on the board through a Damian Stevens penalty after two minutes.
New Zealand’s Jordie Barrett, in his first start at fly-half, put in Sevu Reece with an assured cross-field kick just three minutes later, but then missed the conversion.
Anton Lienert-Brown stormed through a gap and fended off two defenders for New Zealand’s second try on 20 minutes, but Barrett scuffed his conversion once again.
The All Blacks were finding it hard going against the physical Namibians, who twice worked their way up field and won a pair of penalties which Stevens knocked over to take them to only 10-9 down after half-an-hour.
Agencies
