A disastrous 2024 Rugby Championship for both New Zealand and Australia comes to an end in Wellington this weekend, when the All Blacks will be hoping to avoid their first third-place finish in this annual event since it was the Tri-Nations series back in 2004.

With home advantage this time potentially favouring the All Blacks, rugby betting sites have widened the spread by a further five points despite New Zealand falling well short of covering it last weekend. 

New Zealand Vs Australia Betting Tips: Cruise Control For All Blacks 

Following their third loss of three or fewer points to the All Blacks in three years, the next challenge for the Wallabies is to string together consecutive competitive Bledisloe Cup performances.

Last year they got so close in Dunedin the week after a 31-point loss in Melbourne, whilst in 2022 a two-point defeat in Melbourne preceded a 26-point thrashing at Eden Park. In 2021 back-to-back games at Eden Park were lost by margins of eight and 35 points respectively. 

Scrum-half Tate McDermott vowed during the week that the team are “done with the whole ‘almost got there in the end’” part of their rivalry with New Zealand, and head coach Joe Schmidt does have a history of developing teams to go beyond their expected potential. 

But there’s no denying that New Zealand cost themselves seven tries over the space of an hour last week, plus the two yellow cards, which was ultimately the difference between the final score and a very comfortable win for the All Blacks.

They rarely string together consecutive poor performances, so if they can fix their discipline and play some simpler and more humble rugby, they should be far too good on home soil.

New Zealand Vs Australia Prediction 1: New Zealand -19.5 Points – 1.9 With PlayUp

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