49ers rout Rams 27-7 in NFL’s first Australia game behind Brock Purdy’s 3 TD passes

MELBOURNE, Australia — Mike Evans, Demarcus Robinson and Deebo Samuel caught touchdown passes from Brock Purdy, and the San Francisco 49ers routed the Los Angeles Rams 27-7 Friday in the first NFL regular-season game in Australia. Purdy passed for 205 yards against the Rams’ ineffective defense at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of 100,021 fans, the seventh-largest regular-season crowd in NFL history. Australia’s sporting capital reveled in its first real taste of American football — and in a dominant win by the 49ers, who had already won many Aussies’ affection by traveling to Melbourne a week earlier than the Rams, who only boomeranged in on Thursday morning. A party atmosphere prevailed even with a Friday morning kickoff necessary to hit the lucrative primetime television audiences in the U.S.