All Blacks silence doubters with clinical series-clinching victory over France

After notching a narrow victory over Les Bleus in Dunedin last week, there was pressure on All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson and his troops, but they were full value for this series-clinching win, dominating for long periods and were more clinical in their execution.

The All Blacks eventually outscored their visitors by six tries to two with Cam Roigard, Ardie Savea, Codie Taylor, Tupou Vaa'i, Will Jordan and Rieko Ioane all crossing the whitewash. 

The opening exchanges were evenly contested and after absorbing some early pressure from the visitors, the All Blacks opened the scoring in the eighth minute courtesy of a Beauden Barrett penalty after Nicolas Depoortere strayed offside on defence.

Five minutes later, the home side extended their lead when Roigard crossed for his try after some brilliance from the All Blacks forwards.

Midway through the half, New Zealand were reduced to 14 men when flyhalf Barrett was yellow carded for deliberately knocking down a pass from Nolann Le Garrec deep inside the hosts' 22.

Le Garrec slotted the resulting penalty which meant the All Blacks held a 10-3 lead by the 20th minute before Savea went over for another converted try off the back of a lineout drive deep inside Les Bleus territory.

France were then dealt a massive setback when Joshua Brennan was sent to the sin-bin in the 28th minute for a dangerous tip tackle on Jordie Barrett. The rest of the half was dominated by the hosts, who scored two further tries during that period.

On the half-hour mark, Taylor dotted down after a strong lineout drive from the All Blacks, before Vaa'i rounded off a spectacular try after the ball went through several pairs of hands in the build-up.

That meant New Zealand had their tails up with the score 29-0 in their favour at half-time.

France needed a response and that came eight minutes after the restart when Leo Barre crossed for their first try after running a superb line deep inside the All Blacks' 22.

The All Blacks did not panic, and in the 56th minute, Jordan rounded off in style after Billy Proctor was stopped just short of the try-line in the build-up.

And in the 62nd minute, Ioane got over for his five-pointer in the left-hand corner after running onto a well-timed pass from Jordie Barrett before Brennan added some respectability to the final score for Les Bleus when he crashed over for his try in the game's closing stages.

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