Plenty to fear from new Zealand but Ireland should be sniffing blood
Crunch time for Ireland has finally arrived. The date that has been circled on the calendar for the best part of a year is upon us and Joe Schmidt’s squad can finally measure themselves against the best in the world.
Less than a year out from the World Cup, Ireland versus New Zealand is the fixture rugby supporters have been craving to see more than any other. Second in the world plays host to the top dogs at the Aviva Stadium tonight, with Grand Slam champions going toe to toe with back-to-back World Cup winners.
With apologies to Iain Henderson @HendersonIain here’s the correct team for tomorrow. @DanLeafy94 ruled out. @joshvdf starts. @Jordimurphy on the bench. pic.twitter.com/NUfeEgYwPd
— Irish Rugby (@IrishRugby) November 16, 2018
A measure of Ireland’s progress in the last five years of playing the All Blacks is that this is no longer a fixture where the people who have long made this game a sell-out will be thronging down Lansdowne Road in expectation of a one-sided Kiwi masterclass.
The near-miss and heartache Irish supporters experienced after a last-ditch 24-22 win by Steve Hansen’s side in 2013 turned into triumphant celebration three years later at Chicago’s Soldier Field as their team ended a 111-year sequence of misery against the game’s greatest exponents and the brutal reaction by the All Blacks that followed two weeks later to win the Dublin rematch told you everything you needed to know about how much respect Ireland had earned in the process.
There have been further signs of that here this week as the All Blacks and their travelling media have talked more about Ireland and the individual players they will face than ever before. It was not too long ago, November 2016 in Chicago to be precise, that a Kiwi reporter addressed a question to Jack McGrath thinking he was Rory Best.
Now they are taking pot-shots at Johnny Sexton and Bundee Aki, among others. They know the names now and after a less than smooth progress through 2018 you get the feeling this game is as important to New Zealand as it is to Ireland.
The home Rugby Championship defeat to Rassie Erasmus’s Springboks in September, when world player of the year Beauden Barrett’s errant goal-kicking exposed some previously unseen frailties, lingered into the rematch in Pretoria on October 7 where it took the summoning of all All Black reserves to eke out a remarkable 32-30 win and avoid back-to-back defeats.
While the ease with which England raced into a 15-0 lead at Twickenham last week will have rattled Hansen and his selectors before composure was resumed and the game won 16-15.
The English are kicking themselves that they did not close the deal and Ireland should be sniffing blood.
There is still plenty to fear, of course, not least in the absence through injury of linchpin scrum-half Conor Murray and centre Robbie Henshaw while the losses of both Sean O’Brien and Dan Leavy in quick succession are also a concern.
Yet while having removed the monkey from their backs by beating them two years ago, the fear factor remains that this is a New Zealand side capable of hitting the heights to which others can merely aspire.
“I’m scared every weekend,” head coach Schmidt said at Thursday’s team announcement when asked if the fear factor was something to be embraced, as his defence coach Andy Farrell had suggested 48 hours earlier.
“The All Blacks are the team that can put the most points on you in the shortest space of time. We’ve seen that in the not too distant past.”
“Thankfully, we’ve played three games against them; a very narrow loss (in 2013) when it was a draw after the first conversion (the game was lost with a re-taken conversion of Ryan Crotty’s overtime try).
“The next one we won with an 11-point margin (40-29 in Chicago) and the next one they won with a 12-point margin (21-9 in Dublin a fortnight later) so there hasn’t ever been those big scores but you fear that it could be, just because I’m a realist about the number of variables we don’t control.
“What I do know is the players will give their utmost to ensure that doesn’t happen and they’re going go roll their sleeves up and work as hard as they can to put us in a strong position and to limit the opportunities that the All Blacks get.”
No-one is suggesting it is going to be easy but Schmidt clearly believes he has a side to notch a first ever won over his countrymen on home soil, even if last Saturday’s performance in getting past Argentina was less than convincing.
“You’d certainly love to be able to create a little bit of time and space somewhere because it looks like there’s a massive, green rectangle there but with 15 incredibly athletic, incredibly competitive men on the opposition, it’s still very hard to find a lot of space.
“So, we’re going to have to be a little bit clever. We’re going to have to be quick to make sure that the accuracy of what we do is spot on, and I don’t think it was great last week.
“You can’t give excuses for that. You can explain a couple of reasons like having limited time together but, really, it’s a results-driven industry. You’ve got to get the result at the end of the day and I suppose one of the negatives of climbing your way up the rankings is that I think expectations change and it’s not enough to win.
“The one exception — maybe two or three exceptions — in world rugby is any old win will do against the All Blacks, I’ll take 3-0.”
There will not be many Irish supporters questioning that statement but it is a tall order, especially without the aforementioned Murray and Henshaw and what they bring to both Irish creativity, game management and firepower in possession and defensive acumen and physicality without the ball.
That piles a lot of pressure onto their replacements Kieran Marmion and Bundee Aki but the reality is that it will take a landmark performance from all of Schmidt’s men. What makes this contest so compelling, though, is the fact that the All Blacks know that beating Ireland now also takes something very special. That is an intriguing prospect for what promises to be another high-octane collision. It should be a cracker.
