Five lessons to be learned from the Rugby World Cup match between New Zealand and Namibia as the half-backs display their talent.

Here are our five key learnings from New Zealand’s Rugby World Cup victory over Namibia (71-3) at Toulouse’s Stadium de Toulouse.

The perfect game to react to.

The All Blacks had to turn things around after suffering consecutive defeats to South Africa and France, which they did by defeating an inferior Namibia team.
With six tries in the first half and five more after the break, New Zealand had an easy time of it and restored some optimism to their World Cup camp.

The team sheet was screaming for excitement, especially in the half-backs, and they did not let us down. Cam Roigard and Damian McKenzie delighted in the chance to link up behind a pack that was moving quickly. Outside of them, players like Anton Lienert-Brown and Leicester Fainga’anuku occasionally let loose as New Zealand got rid of the bad feelings from recent losses before taking a break before their crucial match against Italy on September 29.

a vast difference in quality.

It’s difficult to watch such a one-sided game at Rugby World Cup level, even though we’ve been thrilled to see the development and competitiveness teams like Chile and Uruguay have shown in the early stages of the competition.
Unfortunately, as New Zealand cruised, Namibia was essentially outclassed in every department.

The South American pair, as well as Japan before them in 2019, have demonstrated that it is possible to close the gap on the Tier One teams, despite the fact that doing so frequently appears to be an impossible task.
The other games in this challenging pool will undoubtedly be Namibia’s focus, but it was difficult to ignore the disparity in quality in this lopsided loss.

Once more, Cam Roigard shines.

This was a special night for the Hurricanes star, who made his international debut in the Rugby World Cup warm-up match against the Springboks last month when he made an impressive try-scoring cameo late in the game.
Roigard put in a polished performance, winning Player of the Match after a sensational 67-minute performance.

Roigard had the ideal first 40 minutes of play, scoring two tries and dishing out two assists.
Although he didn’t reach those heights in the second half, he can still take a lot of positives away from this win knowing that he couldn’t have done much more to replace Finlay Christie as Aaron Smith’s backup in crucial matches.

Given that Roigard is living up to the Super Rugby hype and that the legendary Smith is nearing the end of his Test career, the future at number nine appears to be in safe hands.

DMac has to make the team.

In light of Roigard’s performance, McKenzie, who made a rare start on Friday, easily could have won Player of the Match. He scored two tries in his 26-point performance and frequently gave their attack a boost of speed that greatly troubled Namibia.

While there are more backline options among the replacements and regular starters Richie Mo’unga (fly-half) and Beauden Barrett (fly-half/full-back) don’t help McKenzie’s case for a bench spot, one can’t help but feel the All Blacks need McKenzie in the squad for crucial matches because he poses such a threat.

Still a worry is the penalty count.

Although his team won easily, All Blacks head coach Ian Foster will be disappointed with their high penalty count, which has stood out during their last three games.
They gave up 14 penalties in their most recent game against the Springboks before giving up 12 to France.

New Zealand lost both of those games, and despite beating Namibia, their lack of discipline cost them as they committed 12 penalties.
Although they were flagged for penalties at scrums and breakdowns, Ethan de Groot’s yellow card, which was later upgraded to a red card for an illegal hit on Adriaan Booysen late in the first period, was particularly alarming.

Prior to their next game against Italy in two weeks, Foster and his group still have a lot of work to do.