England 25 New Zealand 25: Hosts snatch last-gasp draw after THREE tries in final ten minutes following horror start
Marcus Smith finally lit the blue touch paper for England but they will be kicking themselves for a dozy start.
England’s attacking game was nowhere for over an hour as the Kiwis sprinted into a 22-6 lead before the hosts pegged them back.
The Twickenham crowd left wondering where the razzle dazzle England of the last 10 minutes had been for the previous 70 as Smith dragged them back to draw.
It was a miracle comeback but England will want to know why they did not start the game on fire like they finished it.
Eddie Jones’s side were trailing 17-3 at half-time after being pumped by the tourists for 40 minutes and hard hardly fired a shot.
On the day of Owen Farrell’s 100th cap they looked like they had overdone the celebrations for their skipper and had the snooze button on.
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But fly-half Smith sparked them into life in the 72nd minute with a high-stepping run that outflanked the all Blacks defence and ended up with prop Will Stuart piling over.
Kiwi legend Beauden Barrett ended up in the bin for not releasing Smith in the tackle earlier in the move and all bets were off as England sensed an escape.
Then Freddie Steward smashed over with six minutes left after lively stuff from Ben Youngs and the crowd were sniffing blood.
Stuart was not picked to score tries but he rumbled over with a minute left and Smith’s kick levelled it up.
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England were so much on the front foot it was a shock when Smith booted the ball into touch to finish the game but they probably couldn’t believe their luck.
They had got out of jail after talking the talk all week. It took them three quarters of the match to walk the walk here.
England did not do any fancy wind-ups when they faced the haka. The V formation from the epic 19-7 win in the 2019 World Cup semi-final was binned in a favour of a straight line.
But the Twickenham crowd did the job of drowning out the Kiwi chanting as they performed the challenge.
Every England player, and boss Eddie Jones, you spoke to this week said the Red Rose outfit were going to ‘go after’ the All Blacks.
You’d think they would do that every week, against anybody, but all that talk disappeared into the Twickenham night when Jack van Poortvliet had a horror show on four minutes.
England have been slow out of the stalls in games and tournaments for the past two year and when the scrum-half’s pass was picked off and run in from 40m by All Black flanker Dalton Papali’i they were on the back foot.
This was a different Kiwi team that lost to Ireland in the summer, and Argentina after that, but the warning signs were there as the All Blacks reeled off six wins on the spin before coming to HQ.
And it got worse when Ellis Genge gave away a scrum penalty, New Zealand kicked for the line out and hooker Codie Taylor bundled over.
14-0 and all the hot air spoken in the week was floating out of Twickers.
And the 82,000 punters would have been better off burning their cash than shelling out upwards of £170 a pop for tickets.
And England were all over the shop. Billy Vunipola got pinged in a promising attacking position and the New Zealanders went over for a third time through centre Rieko Ioane.
But with a bloodbath beckoning that was chalked off for a neck roll on Farrell by the Kiwi.
Farrell got three back but that was equalled by Jordie Barrett’s penalty on the stroke of half-time.
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Smith narrowed it but Ioane got his try after a wonder score. England lost a line out, Jordie Barrett cross-kicked to wing Caleb Clarke who fed Ioane.
He still had 70m to go but did it easily, it was clinical. It was deadly and England were on the canvas before Smith pulled them off it.