All Blacks v Italy - Rugby World Cup: The minutes that mattered

With the All Blacks needing a big performance against Italy to build momentum in their Rugby World Cup campaign, Ian Foster’s men hit the ground running with early tries and set-piece dominance as Will Jordan, Aaron Smith and Ardie Savea shone.

Running on phase ball inside the All Blacks’ 22m, Ardie Savea takes a short pass from Brodie Retallick, blasting hard on an angled run heading back into the Italian defenders.

It’s the kind of angled run that featured heavily in the Springboks Pool B clash with Ireland, with the first receiver sending a fast mover on an inward slant into flat defence. Both the Boks and the Irish – whose flat defences have troubled us – use runs like this to good effect. Put the All Blacks pair in green jerseys (and make Retallick considerably smaller) and you could be mistaken for thinking it was Bundee Aki on the shoulder of Johnny Sexton.

Aaron Smith found similar runners later in the game, and we might see more of it in the quarter-finals.

After the All Blacks win a free-kick for a scrum infringement – the Italian pack being adjudged to have stepped backward before engaging – Brodie Retallick is captured on camera offering his teammates a frank assessment of the Azzurri’s prospects: “They’re f***ed!”

He wasn’t wrong, the scoreboard was reading 35-3 at that point, and the black pack had established such dominance the match was already starting to look like a training ground run.

The tight five dominance reached its peak in the 53rd minute, when the All Blacks shoved the golden oldies-mode Italians off their own scrum ball, setting up a break that led to Cam Roigard almost scoring. At the next set piece, the Italians threw the ball clean over their own lineout, Telea grabbed it, and Dalton Papali’i said “Grazie” as he dotted down under the sticks.

With memories of being knocked around by the French and the Boks still fresh in the mind, the chance to hit their mark will have given the All Blacks forwards confidence they can carry from this game on into the quarter-finals.

The All Blacks captain gets his first taste of action at his third World Cup. Questions had been raised about his captaincy, and his team has struggled in recent times, being well beaten by France and the Springboks in the past month.

The fact that coach Ian Foster waited until there were only 24 minutes left on the clock suggests the cotton wool was barely off his leader and preferred open sider.

He’s never been a razzle-dazzle guy, but Cane would have been chuffed that his first touch of the ball came as a key link in a lineout move, putting Dane Coles in to score. The low-pressure dropped ball that killed momentum in the 64th minute will be a reminder for the All Blacks captain of the heavy focus on his every deed.

The All Blacks got to the final whistle without having to play with 14 men. It’s the first time they’ve managed to finish a match without picking up either a yellow or red card since they squeaked past the Wallabies in Dunedin in early August. The cards against the Springboks and France hurt a lot.

Their discipline and execution at the breakdown were hardly tested by the Azzurri, but there’s little doubt a problematic trip to the judiciary would have been high on Foster’s list of pre-match worries.

Likewise, the clean sheet on the injury front – particularly for returning figures like Cane, Shannon Frizzell, Jordie Barrett and Tyrel Lomax – will be a relief.

Winston Aldworth is NZME’s Head of Sport, and has been a journalist since 1999.