Rugby Union

The All Blacks went on a try-scoring spree yesterday as elsewhere six teams geared up for some heavyweight showdowns at the weekend.

New Zealand pummelled hapless Japan 83-7 in an embarrassingly one-sided rout which brought back the horrors of past World Cups for Asia’s top team.

The makeshift All Blacks, with Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and Mils Muliania among those missing injured, scored 13 tries at a rate of one every six minutes to evoke memories of the Bloemfontein massacre of 1995, when they beat Japan 145-17.

The performance, at a packed but unexcited Waikato Stadium, was by far the heaviest defeat in a World Cup which has so far been notable for the giant strides smaller teams have made to catch up with the established nations.

It was a second straight win for the hosts and sets them up nicely for Pool A’s crunch match against France in Eden Park on September 24.

If the New Zealand vs Japan match was one-way traffic, the weekend promised some tighter affairs.

Australia take on Ireland in a mouth-watering Pool C clash and there was a late scare for the Wallabies with specialist open-side flanker David Pocock reporting in with a back strain.

“At this stage it was just a precautionary measure and we’ll see how he pulls up in the morning with tightness in his back,” a team spokesman said.

Ireland, who like Australia won their opener, are plotting to exert maximum pressure to nullify key Wallaby halves Will Genia and Quade Cooper.

And they are also hoping that they will have most of the crowd in the Eden Park Stadium on their side with the home fans keen to see arch-rivals Australia beaten.

Today’s other games see defending champions South Africa take on Fiji in Wellington while the action starts down south in Invercargill where both Argentina and Romania need to win to stay alive.

Tomorrow’s big clash is in Hamilton where Wales will be looking to take revenge for past World Cup defeats on muscular Samoa.

Wales are unchanged despite losing 17-16 to the Springboks in their opener while the Pacific Islanders make just one change from the side that defeated Namibia.

France against Canada and England against Georgia are to-morrow’s other matches.

England returned to their base in Dunedin after a few days break in the mountain resort of Queens-town with coach Martin Johnson and his management still trying to stamp out the embers of the Mike Tindall affair.

Britain’s Sun tabloid reported Tindall, who recently married Zara Phillips, the granddaughter of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, had kissed an unidentified blonde woman while watching a dwarf-throwing contest in a Queenstown bar on Sunday as the team celebrated victory over Argentina in their opening World Cup match.

The story took a new twist yesterday when alleged CCTV footage from the bar showing the woman kissing Tindall was posted on the YouTube website.

Johnson spent the bulk of his press conference, where he named the team to play Georgia tomorrow, defending his squad’s conduct after a “real high pressure game against Argentina”.

Pool ‘A’ Standings

New Zealand (2-0-0) 10; France (1-0-0) 5; Canada (1-0-0) 4; Tonga (0-0-2) 1; Japan (0-0-2) 0.