Sports

Wales End 73 Years of Hurt With Stunning 35-28 Win Over the All Blacks in Cardiff

Abdul Mannan 6 minutes ago • 16 min read

Wales in action at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff during the 2024 Six Nations, file photo. — Photo: Peter Evans / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). File photo from the 2024 Six Nations at the Principality Stadium, Cardiff — not from the 14 November 2026 match.

Wales produced one of the greatest results in the history of international rugby on Saturday, beating New Zealand 35-28 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff to record their first victory over the All Blacks since 1953. The win ended 73 years of hurt, 34 successive defeats and a fixture that had come to feel unwinnable, and it did so in front of a crowd that arrived expecting little and left having witnessed what the Press Association called arguably the most famous win of Wales’s 145-year Test history.

Steve Tandy’s side scored five tries, led by 14 points on three separate occasions, and then defended their line with extraordinary resolve for the final 27 minutes, when New Zealand threw everything at them and scored nothing. According to the Press Association, the All Blacks were held up over the line three times in a frantic closing stretch, and the home side simply would not relent.

The result reverberated far beyond Cardiff. According to SA Rugby Magazine and Planet Rugby, South Africa held on to the world No. 1 ranking, New Zealand missed the chance to overtake them, and Wales climbed from tenth to ninth in the World Rugby rankings. France, who had beaten South Africa 21-19 in Paris on Friday night, moved up to third. It was, by every measure available on the day, the biggest upset of the new Nations Championship’s first season.

Wales had not beaten the All Blacks since a 13-8 win at the old Cardiff Arms Park on 19 December 1953, when Bleddyn Williams captained the side. Since then the two countries had met 34 times and New Zealand had won every one of them. Wales had won only three of the 37 meetings before Saturday — in 1905, 1935 and 1953 — and for most of the players who took the field in Cardiff, the fixture had been a byword for defeat for their entire lives. Shane Williams, Wales’s record try-scorer, never beat New Zealand in his own career, according to ITV.

How the match unfolded

The tone was set inside the first 80 seconds. Louis Rees-Zammit, on his first touch of the ball, kicked over the top of the New Zealand defence, and scrum-half Tomos Williams won the race to the touchdown. Sam Costelow converted, and Wales led 7-0 before many supporters had settled into their seats.

Four minutes later Wales were in what the Press Association called dreamland. Hooker Dewi Lake crashed over from close range, Costelow converted again, and the scoreboard read 14-0. New Zealand, ranked second in the world and eight places above Wales, had been rocked back on their heels by a side that had won only four of its previous 13 matches under Tandy.

An All Blacks response was inevitable, and it arrived in the tenth minute, when Cortez Ratima sprinted over after New Zealand secured quality lineout possession, with Richie Mo’unga converting to cut the deficit in half. But Wales were not finished. Raw forward power produced their third try after 24 minutes, when prop Archie Griffin went over following a lineout, and Costelow’s conversion restored the 14-point gap at 21-7.

New Zealand, though, are three-time world champions for a reason. Wallace Sititi touched down nine minutes before half-time, Mo’unga converted, and then Fehi Fineanganofo crossed in the closing moments of the half to haul the visitors level. The first period ended 21-21, the first time since 2016 that Wales had not trailed their illustrious opponents at half-time, according to the Press Association.

If the first half had been a shock, the start of the second was a statement. Wales went back in front only four minutes after the break, when Eddie James crossed and Costelow, his Scarlets colleague, maintained a 100 per cent conversion rate. Then Rees-Zammit crossed unopposed, Costelow converted again, and Wales were 14 points clear once more at 35-21. For the first time in history, Wales had scored five tries against New Zealand.

New Zealand needed a response, and it arrived from a Peter Lakai try and a Mo’unga conversion in the 53rd minute, setting up a pulsating finale. From that moment, though, the All Blacks did not score another point. For roughly 27 minutes they laid siege to the Welsh line, and Wales held them out. The visitors were held up over the line three times, and in the 65th minute flanker James Botham somehow stopped 17-stone prop Xavier Numia scoring when he was already over the try line, according to ITV. When French referee Pierre Brousset blew the final whistle, players were in tears and the Principality Stadium erupted in scenes of wild celebration.

The final score was Wales 35, New Zealand 28. The scorers told the story of the day: for Wales, tries from Tomos Williams, Dewi Lake, Archie Griffin, Eddie James and Louis Rees-Zammit, all five converted by Sam Costelow. For New Zealand, tries from Cortez Ratima, Wallace Sititi, Fehi Fineanganofo and Peter Lakai, all four converted by Richie Mo’unga. It was a nine-try thriller, according to BBC Sport, and it was decided by the team that defended its line when it mattered most.

The numbers behind the upset

The statistics underline how improbable the result was. According to Planet Rugby, Wales made 305 tackles to New Zealand’s 122, a measure of how much of the second half was spent defending their own line. New Zealand dominated possession and territory for long stretches, particularly after the 53rd minute, and still could not find a way through a defence led by Botham that, in Planet Rugby’s words, refused to break while the visitors threw absolutely everything at it.

The attendance told a different story about Welsh rugby’s recent troubles. According to BBC Sport, the crowd of 55,152 was the smallest for any of the 14 meetings between the sides at the Principality Stadium. According to ITV, there were around 20,000 empty seats, and the Welsh Rugby Union had been selling tickets for as little as £20 during the week. A year earlier, 68,388 people had watched New Zealand beat Wales 52-26 at the same ground. The public had, understandably, lost faith after years of heavy defeats. Those who stayed away missed the greatest day in modern Welsh rugby.

The rankings arithmetic was brutal for New Zealand. According to Planet Rugby and SA Rugby Magazine, the All Blacks lost 2.00 ranking points in the defeat, falling to 90.65, while Wales gained the same amount to rise to 79.37 and ninth place. South Africa, despite losing 21-19 to France on Friday, stayed top on 91.53. France climbed to third on 89.05. New Zealand had gone into the weekend knowing that a win in Cardiff, combined with France’s victory in Paris, would have taken them to No. 1. Instead they finished the weekend further from the summit, and South Africa held on to the position they have occupied for most of the period since the 2023 World Cup.

For Wales, the win was their fifth in 14 Tests under Tandy, and their second in eight days after a 28-21 victory over Japan on 7 November. That Japan win had been unconvincing, and captain Dewi Lake admitted afterwards that the team had let themselves down at times, according to BBC Sport Wales. Nobody said anything of the sort on Saturday.

The long road back

To understand the scale of what happened in Cardiff, it is necessary to understand where Welsh rugby has been. Between October 2023 and July 2025, Wales lost 18 consecutive Test matches, the worst run ever recorded by a top-tier rugby nation, according to the Associated Press. Warren Gatland left his second spell as head coach midway through the 2025 Six Nations, during that run. Matt Sherratt took temporary charge, and the losing sequence finally ended on 12 July 2025 with a 31-22 victory over Japan in Kobe.

Tandy, who had spent almost six years as Scotland’s defence coach, was appointed as Gatland’s permanent successor on 21 July 2025 and took charge on 1 September, with a brief to rebuild a team that had slipped to 14th in the world rankings at its lowest point. His November schedule took in Japan, New Zealand and, next Saturday, Australia. Nobody, including the Welsh public, expected the New Zealand fixture to produce anything other than another heavy defeat.

The Nations Championship campaign had offered little encouragement either. Wales opened the inaugural competition with a 39-24 win over Fiji on 4 July, then lost 35-21 in Argentina on 11 July and 43-0 to South Africa in Durban on 18 July. They entered November fifth in the Northern Hemisphere standings with five championship points, seven behind leaders France. The win over Japan on 7 November was their second victory from four games in the competition, but it was laboured, in front of a crowd of 52,425, and Tandy admitted afterwards that he had expected better.

Against that background, the performance against New Zealand was not merely an improvement. It was a transformation. The same team that had struggled to put Japan away a week earlier scored five tries against the All Blacks, led by 14 points three times, and then produced a defensive stand that will be remembered for as long as the result itself.

Rees-Zammit’s return

No single player embodied the story of the day more than Louis Rees-Zammit. The winger left rugby union in January 2024 to pursue a career in American football, spending time with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Jacksonville Jaguars, before returning to the sport in 2025. He made his first start for Wales in two years against Japan on 7 November, and on Saturday he was at the heart of everything.

It was Rees-Zammit’s first touch of the ball that created the opening try after 80 seconds, when his kick over the top of the New Zealand defence allowed Tomos Williams to win the touchdown race. And it was Rees-Zammit who scored the fifth try, crossing unopposed in the 47th minute to put Wales 35-21 ahead. Between those two moments he was, in the words of the Press Association, a consistent threat, and his pace and directness gave Wales an attacking edge they have so often lacked in recent years.

Tomos Williams, the scrum-half, was equally central. He scored the first try, and according to Fox Sports he produced a superb individual performance, pulling the strings as Wales played with an attacking ambition that belied their lowly ranking. Costelow, meanwhile, was flawless from the kicking tee, converting all five tries, while James Botham’s defensive heroics in the final quarter gave the performance its spine.

The All Blacks’ bad day

For New Zealand, the defeat was a shock of a different kind. Head coach Dave Rennie made eight changes from the side that had beaten Scotland 43-21 in Edinburgh the previous weekend, and the approach backfired spectacularly, according to the Press Association. After the match, Rennie admitted that his side had not been good enough, describing the performance as one-dimensional, according to Planet Rugby.

The All Blacks had arrived in Cardiff as the second-ranked team in the world, unbeaten in the Nations Championship’s November window, and with a 34-match winning run against Wales behind them. They left having lost to a team ranked tenth, having conceded five tries for the first time in the fixture’s history, and having failed to score a point in the final 27 minutes despite dominating possession. It was, by any measure, one of the worst All Blacks performances of the modern era, and it will be remembered in New Zealand as the day the 73-year run ended.

The defeat also had consequences beyond the result. New Zealand had the chance to move to No. 1 in the world rankings, and instead they slipped further behind South Africa. Their next match is against England at Twickenham next weekend, and they will have to pick themselves up quickly, as The Times noted. England, for their part, warmed up for that fixture by beating Japan 78-15 at Twickenham on Saturday, with Will Joseph scoring five tries, equalling the national record and recording the quickest hat-trick in England history.

Analysis: Why It Matters

Seventy-three years is the whole story

Sport produces upsets every weekend, but very few carry the weight of this one. Seventy-three years is not a statistic. It is three generations. The last time Wales beat New Zealand, in December 1953, a try was worth three points, the New Zealand dollar had not yet been introduced, and Cardiff was not yet the capital of Wales, according to BBC Sport. The men who played that day are long gone. The supporters who watched it are long gone. For everyone alive in the Principality Stadium on Saturday, this fixture had only ever ended one way. That is what made the final whistle so emotional, and why players were in tears before they had even left the field. This was not a win. It was the end of a lifetime of losing.

A base already written off

What makes the result more remarkable is the state of the team that produced it. Wales were ranked tenth in the world, eight places below New Zealand. They had lost 18 Tests in a row as recently as last year. They had been beaten 43-0 by South Africa in July. They had laboured to beat Japan a week earlier and admitted they had let themselves down. Their own supporters had voted with their feet: 55,152 people turned up, the smallest crowd for this fixture at the stadium, with tickets going for £20. The Welsh Rugby Union has been through years of political strife and financial difficulty, and the public’s disaffection was visible in the empty seats. This was not a team on the rise. It was a team that had been written off, by its own public, and it beat the All Blacks anyway. That is the difference between a good win and a famous one.

The defence is the real story

The five tries will make the highlights, and rightly so. But the match was won in the final 27 minutes, when Wales had the ball taken away from them and refused to give up a point. New Zealand laid siege to the Welsh line, were held up over it three times, and were denied by a tackle from James Botham on Xavier Numia that will be replayed for years. Making 305 tackles to New Zealand’s 122 is not a game plan. It is a refusal to lose. Teams that defend like that do not do so by accident. They do so because they believe in each other, and because their coach has given them something to believe in. Tandy, who built his reputation as Scotland’s defence coach, has now given Wales a defensive identity. That matters more than any single result, because it is repeatable. Wales can lose to Australia next week and still keep this defence. A team that can defend its line for 27 minutes against the All Blacks can defend it against anyone.

The rankings tell the truth about the gap

There is a temptation to treat this as a one-off, a freak result on a strange afternoon. The rankings say otherwise. Wales gained two full ranking points and climbed to ninth, while New Zealand lost two and stayed second, and South Africa held on to No. 1 only because France had already taken points off them the night before. The gap between the two teams before kick-off was more than 15 ranking points, which is why New Zealand could gain nothing from a win and lose so much from a defeat. That gap has now narrowed, and Wales will carry the confidence of this result into the 2027 World Cup cycle. Rankings are not the point of the sport, but they are an honest measure of where teams stand, and they now say that Wales are a top-ten team that has beaten the second-best team in the world. That is a different conversation from the one Welsh rugby was having a week ago.

What it means for the Nations Championship

The new competition was designed to give the November internationals meaning, and on Saturday it got more meaning than its organisers could have hoped for. The Nations Championship, a joint venture between Six Nations Rugby and SANZAAR, brings together 12 teams in two pools of six, with each side playing six matches against opponents from the opposite hemisphere, three in July and three in November, before a Finals Weekend at Twickenham from 27 to 29 November. Its first edition has already produced a genuine shock, and that is exactly what a new competition needs. France’s 21-19 win over South Africa on Friday and Wales’s win on Saturday have shaken up both the standings and the world rankings in a single weekend. The Grand Final on 29 November will now be watched with far more interest than it would have been a week ago, and the competition has its first great story.

What to Watch Next

Wales against Australia, Saturday 21 November: the Principality Stadium hosts the Wallabies at 8.10pm in Wales’s final regular-round match. After beating New Zealand, Wales will be expected to win, which is a new and unfamiliar pressure. Australia will have watched the All Blacks game closely.
New Zealand against England at Twickenham: the All Blacks travel to London next weekend to face an England side that scored 13 tries against Japan on Saturday. Rennie’s team must respond immediately, and England will sense vulnerability.
The Finals Weekend, 27 to 29 November: all 12 teams play placement matches at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium, with the two pool winners meeting in the Grand Final on Sunday 29 November. Wales’s final position will decide their opponent.
Steve Tandy’s next selections: the head coach made a bold call in backing this side, and the players repaid him. Whether he keeps faith with the same team against Australia, or rotates with the Finals Weekend in mind, will be closely watched.
The world rankings on Monday: World Rugby’s official update will confirm Wales in ninth and South Africa still top, but the gap at the summit has narrowed to just over two points between the Springboks and France in third. The race for No. 1 is wide open.
The Welsh public’s response: the empty seats on Saturday were a statement about how far Welsh rugby’s relationship with its supporters has frayed. A win like this one can repair it, but only if it is followed up. Ticket sales for the Australia game will be the first test.
The 2027 World Cup draw: rankings will determine the seedings for the tournament in Australia, and Wales’s climb to ninth, if sustained, changes the pool they can expect. Every ranking point from here on carries real consequences.

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