All Blacks v England Stat Attack

The All Blacks beat England with a late converted try this past weekend. Some facts and figures from the test by Peter Marriott.

New Zealand v England in London: Won 24-22New Zealand and England first met in a test match at Crystal Palace in London on 2 December 1905. It was New Zealand’s sixth-ever international and at that stage they had yet to experience a defeat. It was England’s 85th test. New Zealand won 15-0.

The two sides have now played a total of 46 tests: New Zealand has won 36, England eight, and there has been two draws.

A total of 27 matches have been played in England. The All Blacks have won 20 times to England’s five. There have been two drawn matches.

With the exception of 1905 and the match played at Old Trafford in 1997, England has hosted New Zealand in all other matches at Twickenham.

As has been the case with many sports grounds around the world, after 114 years Twickenham has surrendered to the sponsor’s dollar and has been renamed Allianz Stadium. The name change was made official on 1 September this year and the All Blacks were the first visiting men’s side to play there.

New Zealand has won four and drawn one of their last five matches in England. England has not beaten New Zealand at home since winning 38-21 at Twickenham in 2012. In fact, since beating the All Blacks 15-13 at Wellington in 2003, England has won on just one other occasion: 19-7 at Yokohama in the Semi-final of the 2019 World Cup. (two wins and a draw in the last 21 encounters).

The All Blacks win against England meant they retained the Hillary Shield which was first contested in 2008.

England toured New Zealand at the start of this season and played two tests. This is the second time the two sides have met on three occasions in the same year: It first occurred in 2008 when the All Blacks also won all three matches but in 2014 they actually met four times with the All Blacks winning 4-0.

In this match the All Blacks led the visitors by two points (14-12) at halftime. This is the smallest-ever point’s margin bettering the three points they were ahead after 40 minutes in two earlier matches. The scores have been level at the break on four occasions.

The All Blacks have so far played 11 tests this year in six different countries including their last five matches in succession in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and England. They also played earlier in the season in the United States. To round off 2024 they have three further matches to play: in Ireland, France and Italy.

The All Blacks have won their last four tests in a row, their best winning sequence under the new Head Coach Scott Robertson.

Mark Tele’a scored two tries in a match for the fourth time. The three previous occasions were against Scotland at Edinburgh on debut in 2022, France at Paris in 2023 and against England at Auckland earlier this year. He has now scored 12 tries in 17 test appearances.

Tele’a has scored the first points (a try) for the All Blacks in three matches this year: against England at Auckland (in the 11th minute), against Japan at Yokohama (12th minute) and in this match in the ninth minute.

Will Jordan scored his first try against England and now has a total of 36 test tries in 38 matches.

Beauden Barrett kicked the first two conversions to take his total points in 132 matches to 751, including 28 against England.

Barrett crossed for a try in the 59th minute and it was awarded by the on-field referee. However, after a TMO review, it was disallowed owing to a knock-on in play moments before.

Damian McKenzie kicked five points in the match and now has 281 in 58 test match appearances. He has scored 30 points against England. McKenzie has 113 points so far this season.

Anton Lienert-Brown picked up his second yellow card of the season taking the total in the 11 matches played so far by the All Blacks to eight.

Four of the All Blacks had not previously played against England: Will Jordan (surprisingly), Cameron Roigard, Wallace Sititi and Pasilio Tosi. Sititi was named Man of the Match.

England’s sole try scorer, Immanuel Feyi-Waboso scored his third try against the All Blacks in as many matches.He also scored in both of the tests played at the start of the season in Dunedin and Auckland. He is just the second England player to score three tries against New Zealand after Chris Ashton who did so at Twickenham in 2012 and 2018 and at Dunedin in 2014. Feyi-Waboso now has five tries in only seven test appearances.

Marcus Smith contributed 17 points with the boot and now has a total of 237 points in 36 tests for England.Thirty-six of those points have been scored against New Zealand.

Smith kicked five penalty goals, just the second time a player has done so for England against New Zealand.At Twickenham in 2013, Owen Farrell was successful with five penalties (and a conversion) in a match won by the visitors 30-22. Dan Cole is the only one to have survived from that match to play in this one 11 years later.

Four of the England side had not previously played against New Zealand: Ben Curry, Alex Dombrandt, Nick Isiekwe and Harry Randall. They were all substitutes and had a combined total of 40 tests between them.Ben Curry, and his brother Tom are identical twins, a rarity at test level. Unfortunately they did not get to play together as Ben replaced Tom in the 59th minute.

The All Blacks can also boast a set of twins (but not identical), the Whetton brothers Alan and Gary, who played back in the mid-eighties and early nineties. They started 31 tests together and on three other occasions one started a match (Gary) and the other, Alan, was a substitute.

With two minutes remaining and New Zealand ahead by two points, England had the opportunity to win the match with a penalty 45 metres from the posts. George Ford, who had replaced Marcus Smith, took the kick which hit the right-hand upright and bounced back into play. Shortly afterwards he attempted a drop-goal which went wide of the posts.

The penalty attempt by Ford was the only place kick which was missed by the four kickers used during the match.

New Zealand’s starting XV had a combined total of 814 caps between them. England’s XV started with a total of 549 caps.

Angus Gardner of Australia was in charge of his 15th test involving New Zealand. It was the first time he had refereed a New Zealand/England match.

New Zealand’s record in all test matches is: played 648, won 497 (76.7%), lost 128 and drawn 23.