MILS Muliaina scored two tries as New Zealand piled on the second-half points to claim a victory over an error-strewn England yesterday and complete their third grand slam of wins over the four home nations.
New Zealand, as in their wins over Scotland, Ireland and Wales, poured on the second-half power to run away to their biggest win at Twickenham, surpassing the 41-20 success two years ago and completing their clean sweep without conceding a try.
"I
n the end we were playing the kind of game we wanted to and we are very happy with what happened," All Black captain Richie McCaw said after his team added the slam to those of 1978 and 2005.
For an hour England were far more competitive than in their previous defeats by Australia and South Africa but were again undone by their own mistakes as they handed over penalty after penalty and had four players sent to the sin bin.
It had started well for the home side from the moment the 82,000 crowd roared out their loudest rendition of Sweet Chariot for years to drown out the Haka.
A failure to stay on the feet at the breakdown became the chief problem but a wild elbow by James Haskell, a week after he handed the Springboks three points for a similar offence, and failure to release handed the initiative to New Zealand.
All Blacks kicker Dan Carter was shaky but he could afford to be as he was given six straightforward shots at goal in the first half and landed four of them.
Haskell and Lee Mears spent 10 minutes in the sin bin and New Zealand were delighted to reach half-time 12-3 ahead without ever really getting out of third gear.
England blasted out of the blocks at the restart though and Nick Easter seemed certain to score after surging through, only for Muliaina to bring him down with an ankle tap.
The All Blacks defended England's subsequent pressure and when they broke it was Toby Flood's turn to visit the sin bin for a high tackle, keeping England at 14 as Haskell returned.
England did finally get some points, the first the All Blacks conceded in the second half in all four Tests, as fullback Delon Armitage, who has enjoyed a terrific series, calmly slotted a testing penalty to reduce the deficit to six.
Carter was handed an immediate chance to cancel it out but missed again and the All Blacks blew another chance when they knocked on after a 40-metre break by Ma'a Nonu.
However, the try did arrive after 58 minutes when England were shoved back on their own scrum and after slick passing started by Jimmy Cowan, Muliaina was over in the corner.
Ten minutes later Carter chipped the ball straight into the fullback's hands for a second try in the same right corner.
England, as they did last week, then lost their way as Nonu scored his third try in three Tests and Carter finally converted to end with 17 points despite missing five goalkicks.
"At times we had an improvement. It feels like three weeks on the trot we've been in the game at half-time but not had the execution and composure in the second half," said England manager Martin Johnson.
"Our guys have really got to learn that Test match rugby is all about pressure. When we made mistakes they killed us and when they made mistakes we didn't do it to them."
England: D Armitage; P Sackey, J Noon, R Flutey; U Monye; T Flood, D Care; T Payne, L Mears, P Vickery, S Borthwick (c), N Kennedy, J Haskell, M Lipman, N Easter. Replacements: D Hartley, M Stevens, T Croft, T Rees, H Ellis, D Cipriani, D Hipkiss.
New Zealand: M Muliaina; J Rokocoko, C Smith, M Nonu, S Sivivatu; D Carter, J Cowan; T Woodcock, K Mealamu, N Tialata, B Thorn, A Williams, J Kaino, R McCaw (capt), R So'oialo. Replacements: H Elliott, J Afoa, A Boric, K Read, P Weepu, S Donald, I Toeava.
Scorers: England – Pen: Flood, Armitage. New Zealand – Tries: Muliaina (2), Ma'a Nonu. Conversion: Carter. Pen: Carter (5).
Referee: A Rolland (Ireland)
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