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All Blacks strike late to secure opening win against Stormers / Photo: © AFP
All Blacks strike late to secure opening win against Stormers
Four late tries sealed a 38-21 win for the New Zealand All Blacks against the Stormers in the opening match of their South African tour at the Cape Town Stadium on Friday night.
The teams were deadlocked at 14-14 before wing Rieko Ioane scored an opportunist try in the 68th minute, followed in quick succession by fellow wing Leroy Carter, fullback Josh Moorby and hooker Asafo Aumua.
The tourists will play two more matches against local franchises before the first of four Tests against the world champion Springboks.
The All Blacks led 14-7 at half-time after a scrappy opening 40 minutes during which they made numerous errors and conceded a slew of penalties.
They scored after just five minutes through hooker Samisoni Taukei’aho but at one stage were down to 13 players after English referee Karl Dickson handed out yellow cards to centre Anton Lienart-Brown and replacement prop Asafo Aumua.
The Stormers crossed the All Blacks line in the incident which led to Parker's card for obstruction but Andre-Hugo Venter's try was ruled out because he had separated from a maul.
But the Stormers equalised almost immediately when veteran flank Deon Fourie scored a try after another maul from a lineout which followed a penalty for Parker's offence.
Parker made up for his error when he scored a try a minute before half-time after Ioane carved through the Stormers' midfield defence.
Neither team was at full strength.
The Stormers were without nine players who are members of the Springbok squad for the Test series, while All Blacks coach Dave Rennie gave opportunities to many of the fringe players in his 44-man squad.
The All Blacks included only six of the 23-man match-day squad selected for New Zealand's most recent Test, a 40-21 win against Ireland in Auckland on July 18.
Prop Siale Lauaki and flyhalf Josh Jacomb both made All Blacks debuts off the bench.
Scorers:
Stormers: Tries: Deon Fourie, Seabelo Senatla, penalty try. Conversions: Yaqeen Ahmed (2).
All Blacks: Tries: Samisoni Taukei’aho, Simon Parker, Rieko Ioane, Leroy Carter, Josh Moorby, Asafo Aumua.Conversions: Beauden Barrett (3), Josh Jacomb (1)
E. Carvalho--JDB
