Wales host New Zealand at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Saturday and bookmakers have priced the All Blacks up as double digit favourites.
Wales haven’t been in action for some time and their last games were their 3 match Tour to South Africa in July where they put up a good fight before losing the series 2-1. That series would have given them a confidence boost despite the fact that they lost it as their Six Nations was terrible and included a home loss to Italy.
WALES TEAM
15 Leigh Halfpenny, 14 Louis Rees-Zammit, 13 George North, 12 Nick Tompkins, 11 Rio Dyer, 10 Gareth Anscombe, 9 Tomos Williams, 8 Taulupe Faletau, 7 Tommy Reffell, 6 Justin Tipuric (c), 5 Adam Beard, 4 Will Rowlands, 3 Tomas Francis, 2 Ken Owens, 1 Gareth Thomas
Replacements: 16 Ryan Elias, 17 Nicky Smith, 18 Dillon Lewis, 19 Alun Wyn Jones, 20 Christ Tshiunza, 21 Kieran Hardy, 22 Rhys Priestland, 23 Owen Watkin
The All Blacks were in action last week against Japan and they held off a strong Japanese challenge to win the game 38-31. They had one very exciting Rugby Championship earlier in the year, despite the shock defeat to Argentina at home. They will be looking to improve on last year’s Autumn Tour when they hammered a weakened Welsh side and comfortably beat the Italians, but lost to Ireland and France.
NEW ZEALAND TEAM
15 Beauden Barrett, 14 Sevu Reece, 13 Rieko Ioane, 12 Jordie Barrett, 11 Caleb Clarke, 10 Richie Mo’unga, 9 Aaron Smith, 8 Ardie Savea, 7 Dalton Papali’i, 6 Shannon Frizell, 5 Scott Barrett, 4 Samuel Whitelock (c), 3 Tyrel Lomax, 2 Codie Taylor, 1 Ethan de Groot
Replacements: 16 Samisoni Taukei’aho, 17 Ofa Tu’ungafasi, 18 Fletcher Newell, 19 Tupou Vaa’i, 20 Akira Ioane, 21 Brad Weber, 22 David Havili, 23 Anton Lienert-Brown
HEAD TO HEAD
You can draw a line through last year’s 54-16 win by New Zealand in Wales as the Welsh were missing players due to the game taking place outside of their International window. Prior to that they met in 2017 with New Zealand winning 33-18 and New Zealand have not lost to Wales since 1953.
BETTING – Click here to bet
Wales 15/4
Draw 33/1
New Zealand 1/4
Handicap: Wales +11.5
Suggested Bet: Total Points Over 54.5 at 17/20
The roof has been confirmed to be closed so conditions should be perfect and we should have a very attractive and hopefully entertaining Test Match on our hands.
I haven’t seen any odds on the First Try Scorer of the match yet, but I am going to have a nibble on Beauden Barrett to get the opening 5 pointer for New Zealand.
Note: All prices correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
