Australia 34 New Zealand 54
Rieko Ioane and Ryan Crotty both crossed twice as New Zealand ran in eight tries in a brilliant display of running rugby to demolish Australia 54-34 in the Rugby Championship opener on Saturday.
The world champions extinguished any chance of an upset with three tries in seven first-half minutes and continued to slice through the home defence almost at will in the opening 50 minutes to begin their title defence in some style.
Liam Squire, Sonny Bill Williams, Damian McKenzie and Ben Smith also scored tries as the All Blacks brushed off the disappointment of the drawn British and Irish Lions series and a string of off-field distractions.
The Wallabies scored four tries through debutant winger Curtis Rona, replacement back Tevita Kuridrani, centre Kurtley Beale and fullback Israel Folau but they came in the second half once the game was already beyond them.
"It was pretty surreal that first half to be honest. We came here to play our game and it really came off. It was a pretty awesome first half," New Zealand captain Kieran Read said.
"It came about by the doing the simple things. We carried really hard and exploited a few gaps out wide."
The Wallabies face the All Blacks in Dunedin again next week and on this evidence their prospects of winning the remaining two Bledisloe Cup tests to reclaim the trophy for the first time since 2002 must be rated as extremely remote.
"It is not the start we would have hoped for," said Australia captain Michael Hooper. "Being 50 points behind, you start to throw everything we had, I'm so happy with that."
