Wales beat New Zealand 35-28 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Saturday, their first win over the All Blacks since December 1953. The gap between those two victories was 73 years and 34 straight defeats.
Steve Tandy’s side scored five tries to four, then spent the final 27 minutes stopping everything New Zealand threw at them. The visitors were held up over the try line three times in the second half, and the last score of the afternoon came in the 53rd minute.
The haka in the dark
Before a ball was kicked, the stadium put on a show. With the roof closed, the lights went down and the All Blacks performed their haka under a single spotlight. Wales answered from a cloud of smoke lit deep red, a set-piece the Welsh Rugby Union called the “Dragon’s Breath.”
The staging nodded to 1905, when Wales replied to the haka at Cardiff Arms Park by singing their national anthem and then won the first Test between the two countries 3-0. Fans on both sides praised the 2026 version online. One supporter wrote: “Ok now that might’ve been the coolest haka scenes a venue has done for us.”
How Wales built the lead
Wales struck twice inside six minutes of each half. Scrum-half Tomos Williams pounced on a Louis Rees-Zammit chip for the opening try in the second minute, and captain Dewi Lake drove over from a lineout soon after. Tighthead prop Archie Griffin added a third before the All Blacks clawed back tries through Cortez Ratima, Wallace Sititi and Fehi Fineanganofo, the last one deep in first-half injury time, to make it 21-21 at the break.
The restart went the same way. Williams set up center Eddie James out wide in the 43rd minute, and Rees-Zammit dived over five minutes later. Fly-half Sam Costelow landed all five conversions. Peter Lakai’s 53rd-minute try for New Zealand was the final score.
The All Blacks’ own match report put their possession at 65 percent and called the result “one of the great upsets of international rugby.” Wales made more than 330 tackles across the 80 minutes. Flanker James Botham, grandson of England cricket great Ian Botham, was named player of the match after a string of turnovers and one goal-line stop on hooker Asafo Aumua.
Wales against the All Blacks, by the numbers
For readers outside rugby’s heartlands, this is roughly the equivalent of a team ending a losing streak older than most of its fans’ parents. The full record now reads:
- 39 Tests since 1905: New Zealand 35 wins, Wales 4.
- Welsh wins: 1905 (3-0), 1935 (13-12), 1953 (13-8) and 2026 (35-28), all in Cardiff.
- Previous meeting: a 52-26 New Zealand win in Cardiff in November 2025.
The 35 points are the most Wales have ever scored against New Zealand at home, and the seven-point margin is their biggest win in the fixture. Count the years from 19 December 1953 to 14 November 2026 and the drought lasted 72 years and 11 months, which is why both 72 and 73 are being quoted around Cardiff.
New Zealand left with two losing bonus points, enough to stay one point ahead of South Africa in the southern hemisphere standings of the new Nations Championship. They must still beat England at Twickenham next weekend to keep their hopes of a place in the final alive.
If this result has you hunting for more rugby, our report on England beating France to win the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup covers another big November final, and the rest of the weekend’s results are on our Sports section page.
Wales are back at the Principality Stadium next Saturday, 21 November, when Australia visit for an 8:10 p.m. kickoff local time.
Further reading
Image: Peter Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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