New Zealand All Blacks

The side played against the world’s best- the All Blacks in Tauranga over the weekend.

The All Blacks Sevens split their squad into two for the invitational; an All Blacks Sevens ‘Black’ and an All Blacks Sevens ‘Orange’ side.

Over two days, all the teams played five games each at Blake Park.

Tonga lost to the Black Team by 31-5 before the Orange Team beat them 54-0. The Orange and Black ABs then faced off in a close match where Orange came from behind to beat Team Black 14-12.

The All Blacks were almost out of sight at half-time, Julian Savea scoring two tries and Brodie Retallick and Nehe Milner-Skudder one apiece.

A try by Louis Picamoles had kept France afloat but when he was sent to the sin-bin French hopes evaporated.

Savea completed a fine hat-trick and Jerome Kaino, Kieran Read and Tawera Kerr-Barlow (two) also crossed.

The 43-10 win over Georgia at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium was not the emphatic victory the side had hoped for, after talking about needing to step up a level during the week.

There were some positives, with Waisake Naholo's outstanding opening try with his first touch in a World Cup and Julian Savea's hat-trick putting smiles on the face of the All Blacks coach.

However it will be the error rate that will be of most concern, with the side struggling with some of the basics of the game.

Halfback Nic White came off the bench to score a penalty and a converted try which settled a contest which had see-sawed back and forth for the best part of 70 minutes, giving the Wallabies a first win over the All Blacks since they won the final Tri-Nations in 2011.

Prop Sekope Kepu and wing Adam Ashley-Cooper also crossed for the Australians, who will win back the Bledisloe Cup for the first time since 2002 if they can beat New Zealand in Auckland next week.

He played 38 tests and 75 matches for the All Blacks in the 1970s but he was also Samoa's head coach at the 1991 World Cup.

Samoa beat Wales and Argentina to finish second behind Australia in their group, which made the rugby world suddenly take sit up and notice of teams from the Pacific Islands.

His son Paul played for Samoa at the last World Cup and he said he could never understand why it had taken so long for New Zealand to play in Samoa.