LONDON: Will the real Rugby World Cup holders please stand up? Three games, three wins and a quarter-final place secured but New Zealand are still searching for fluency.

The misfiring All Blacks won an arm wrestle with Georgia on Friday, scoring seven tries in a 43-10 victory in Cardiff but making a slew of uncharacteristic handling errors in a scrappy and sloppy display.

“We realise we need to be better,” New Zealand captain Richie McCaw said. “We were trying too hard at times. There is no panic... we have seven days to fix it before Tonga [in their last Pool ‘C’ game].”

There were, however, pluses for Steve Hansen’s side in their 50th match since they lifted the trophy for a second time in 2011.

Rookie winger Waisake Naholo made an explosive return 10 weeks after breaking his leg, scoring the opening try after 73 seconds — the fastest of the tournament.

Prolific winger Julian Savea took his tally to 35 tries in 38 test with a hat-trick but the moment of the night belonged to Georgia fullback Beka Tsiklauri who could not quite believe it when he hacked through to pick up and score a try soon after Naholo.

Published in Dawn October 4th, 2015

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