I had a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday after Ireland’s historic, potentially era-defining win over New Zealand in the series decider on Saturday morning and it prompted me to write this bit of alternate universe fiction.
Please indulge me for a minute and read it. I promise I have a point.
Ireland were brutally outclassed in the first half by the All Blacks. We had ideas of what we were going to do differently this time, how we were going to rattle them, but it didn’t matter. The All Blacks had the measure of us and, in reality, won the game in that first 40 minutes with a brutally clinical performance. We were shellshocked. Blown out of it. Made to look second-rate.
In the second half, to be fair, Ireland rallied after that first half pumping, tightened up the game, played very, very direct off #9 and managed to score a try after 15+ phases. A few minutes later, the All Blacks shipped a yellow card and Ireland, our tails up, scored a try from the resulting lineout maul – again, playing very directly off the maul break.
Right before the last quarter, our speedy winger produced a breakaway try, almost from nothing to give us real hope that we could pull the All Blacks back but, in reality, that big 15 minutes was something of a pyrrhic victory. The effort we expended to get back within a score seemed to suck the energy out of us for the final 20 minutes. The All Blacks – cool, calm, and sharp as a butcher’s knife – dusted themselves off, scored the killer try just four minutes later and saw out the game with hard, cynical, elite-level defence and game management.
Does that fiction sound familiar?
It should, because that was Ireland whenever we played the All Blacks for the majority of the last 20 years.
Instead, on the 16th of July 2022 in Wellington, the roles were finally reversed.
The final scoreboard flattered them, honestly. I’ve watched the game back four times before writing this and I thought about opening with that previous sentence. It’s a little too hubristic for me, even now, but it’s true, like. The All Blacks were haunted to get within 10 points of us by the final whistle but we know all about that too because that used to be us. Have a read of this match report from the June 2006 tour to New Zealand in the Guardian. Pay attention to the opening paragraphs.
There was a feeling of deja vu as for the second Saturday in succession a spirited Ireland team ran the All Blacks close, but again ended up losing.
[…] the hosts held off a determined Ireland in the third quarter of the match before fly-half Luke McAlister sealed the result for New Zealand in the 70th minute when he capitalised on some powerful forward play to score a try under the posts.
That was us. Now it’s them.
The wheel always turns. Sometimes it takes decades to turn, but it turns all the same. For the first time in our 117-year, 36-test relationship with the All Blacks we finally hold the decisive upper hand. And it feels good.
♛ ♛ ♛
The first 40 minutes of this third test were as good as you’ll see when it comes to test rugby in 2022.
Ireland were dominant. Ruthless. Clinical.
Our counter-transition game almost cleaved the All Blacks open inside the first minute right from the restart. I’ve covered so much of the counter-transition concept that it’s nearly redundant at this stage but watch for the keys in this clip.
Beirne forced a scragged kick. Keenan running for contact on the right ball. Ireland beating them to the shape after the reset. Winning collisions.
Doris’ carry was the key but it’s not just him battering a guy out of the way – he’s selling a pass to Furlong, which draws the All Blacks out of shape but it’s not just one pass, it’s the radiating options Ireland have shown we can and will use over and over again.
Henshaw (Green #13) is looping around on this phase to make a key break on the next one with Beirne and Sheehan slicing up the All Blacks’ cover defence.
Only a great last-ditch cover intercept by Beauden Barrett prevented Lowe from running this into the corner. This kind of play doesn’t just happen. This isn’t off-the-cuff magic on transition – this is schemed and planned to the point that it could be a set piece strike move.
Combine offensive output like this off counter-transition kicking, with dominance at the lineout – in part because the All Blacks were severely reduced in their own defensive lineout – the All Blacks almost had no way out.
In truth, when the All Blacks lost Scott Barrett pre-game, I genuinely believe that their chances of winning this decider went with them. The key adjustment for Foster and his coaching staff was to utilize a three-lock pack to shore up the All Blacks lineout, defensive and offensive maul and give them a bit of insurance on their own kicking game. How does a third lock in your pack impact your kicking game?
It allows you to kick with more freedom, which gives the opposition more lineout possession with the idea that you have more weapons to attack that possession with while shoring up the other by-products of kicking like offensive/defensive mauls and in the scrum.
When they were forced to replace Barrett with Akira Ioane, they would have improved their own impact ball carrying – up to a point centrally but certainly in the wider channels – but they didn’t want to use that aspect of their game build until the last quarter of the game when, ideally, they would have upped the tempo on an Irish side that would already have Porter and Furlong red-lining. You could see how Ioane’s heavy-wing forward profile would work in that scenario as a ball-carrying threat off the bench, especially with Richie Mo’unga and Beauden Barrett on the field during the end-game. You can see how it should have worked in the early phases in the build-up to New Zealand’s first try in the second half. Inside the first 5 minutes of the half, New Zealand seemed to go to the framework they had planned for the last quarter twenty minutes early.
Prior to that – for most of the first half, actually – New Zealand were running Akira Ioane and Ardie Savea in lines you might expect Scott Barrett to be running. They were far tighter. Far more first and second pod focus. It didn’t really suit where either player is strong. That goes double for Akira Ioane, who was forced into being more of a cleaner and tight carrier when he’s far better as a direct carrier in the wider channels – in my opinion.
For me, New Zealand seemed to be caught in two minds between duplicating what they wanted from Barrett with a similar-ish player, even if that was off-role for the player in question.
With Scott Barrett as a third lock, they would have someone who could rotate in for 7/8 heavier ball carries off #9 or #10, boss the central areas of their phase framework, force a few compressions and make life easier for Ardie Savea – and even Akira Ioane.
The off-role moments don’t stop there.
Akira Ioane is a great heavy wing forward but when he’s forced to be a core lineout forward, the quality of his performance goes down drastically. This isn’t just about counter-jumping, it’s about lifting accurately and in shape.
Scott Barrett brings that as standard – Ioane does not. Just like last week, New Zealand were vulnerable to Ireland’s favoured 5+1 lineout, which left them open to getting manipulated for multiple phases afterwards.
This is an excellently taken try but it starts with a poor defence of a 5+1 because of a dodgy back lift and a poor maul entry. If one of your lifting core isn’t up to it when the pressure comes on at this level – you’re sunk. Not everyone can be a half-lock or even a combo-flanker. If your maul detail isn’t what it needs to be it can cost you in key moments.
I don’t think Barrett makes these errors. But this isn’t really about Akira Ioane. He didn’t have a great game while playing off-role duties but he was prominent in the second half when he got a chance to play to his strengths. The real issue, for me, is Sam Cane, the All Blacks captain. No one could ever doubt his work rate or commitment to the All Blacks but as off-role as Akira Ioane was he was at least playing off-role; Sam Cane looked obsolete.
He stuck his tackles, yes, but what good is a ruck dominant non-jumping support forward without a dominant carrying game when Ireland aren’t competing at most of the rucks? That’s where the true issue lies for the All Blacks in their back five right now, in my opinion.
When you come at this Irish side with guys in off-role position without a bunch of heavy ball carriers and you end up playing with a lot of possession, you lose. New Zealand are behind the times. The Leinster side that makes up the bulk of this team batters middleweight-build sides like New Zealand constantly by playing off-ball, kicking long and strangling you on counter-transition because they don’t rate you ball in hand.
Ireland did the same to the All Blacks in the last two tests.
Ian Foster’s desperation to get a third lock into the pack is a reflection of where he felt New Zealand needed to be stronger but their issues go way deeper than that. They badly need size and power in their front five and another lineout specialist to augment Retallick and Whitelock. You might think, that’s Jerome Kaino you’re talking about and it’s true – they’ve never replaced him and Saturday morning laid that bare.
Ireland’s kryptonite is size and tight power. France and South Africa have it at the moment. The All Blacks don’t, at least not to the level that is needed in 2022.
So we put them away as we’d expect to do against anyone else with that pack build and the parameters we saw here.
We had 43% possession but played with the highest Pass Per Carry rating I’ve seen from any side this season. We had a score of 3.1, which gives you an idea of how we managed to hurt the All Blacks despite having 96 fewer on-ball involvements. It’s not just about having a high PPC rating though, it’s about controlling the flow of the game through the boot, which we did excellently.
That PPC rating dovetailed with our highest kicking volume of the season, with over one kilometre worth of distance. Essentially, the All Blacks couldn’t kick as freely as they wanted because they were down on the scoreboard, so they had to carry. They couldn’t make headway with ball in hand so they had to kick to reset. When we kicked, they rarely got away from us on kick transition and, as they found on their own possession, didn’t have the power to reset to a tight game that might have forced a penalty out of us. In that environment, you have to turn to your set piece and they had nothing there either. They didn’t have the power to hurt Porter in the scrum and their lineout ran at 75% completion.
What happens when you play like that against Ireland? You lose.
♛ ♛ ♛
I don’t think anyone in the Ireland camp is looking beyond this week. After full-time, the discourse online turned to where this ranks in the all-time list of Irish sporting achievements. Some had it #1, others baulked at the cartoonish idea of rugby that they have in their head ever representing Ireland as a whole. It doesn’t really matter, is my point. This win is invaluable for Irish rugby because it showed that when the heat comes on when the big W is at stake, we don’t always choke. A young player watched this game on Saturday morning and decided that one day, he was going to play for Ireland too because wins like this create benefits in the short, medium and long term. We’ve had plenty of false dawns – as Sexton was keen to point out when he mentioned how much beating New Zealand in 2018 was worth in the aftermath of the 2019 Rugby World Cup quarter-final – but I think this series win is a serious statement of progression.
As good as we were in 2018, for example, I don’t think we were capable of winning in New Zealand at that point. We are now.
Sure, the All Blacks are at a low ebb when it comes to top-level talent – a little too in love with ballerz in the pack, rather than the heavy artillery and set piece role specialists they need in the modern game – and their coaching, from a tactical perspective, isn’t what it needs to be but there won’t be an asterisk next to this series win in 10 years saying that. All it will say is that in the summer of ’22, Ireland went to New Zealand and won a three-test series; something no other Northern Hemisphere test side has ever done. Ever.
This series win shows us that there’s nowhere in the game that we can’t go and expect to win.
It used to be that Ireland couldn’t win in France, and then we did that.
It used to be that we could never win in South Africa, and then we did that. It used to be that we could never beat the All Blacks, but then we did that. It used to be that we could never win in New Zealand and, well, you know how that went.
To turn this into a World Cup win – because who cares about a semi-final if you lose it? – I think Ireland will need some more depth in the front five, a second playmaker build we can switch to against bigger sides and, possibly, a way to get Henderson, Beirne and Ryan on the field at the same time consistently.
If we can answer our issues against elite size and power, we can talk about winning a World Cup seriously. That remains a question mark for me, for now, but if we’re focusing on today then we can only conclude that this has been a phenomenal tour for Irish Rugby. It will be remembered forever.
I think we can, at times, end up looking past days like this in favour of trophies, trophies, trophies Roy Keane cosplay, as if celebrating a genuinely outstanding achievement like this is somehow pointless. Well, firstly, there was a trophy on the line – both literally and figuratively – and Ireland lifted it at the end.
Secondly, celebrating this win would only be a problem if there was a groundswell of “well, I guess we can all relax now” sentiment in the aftermath. There isn’t. This series win will be meaningless next year if Ireland lose a quarter-final in the World Cup, just as being #1 in the World in November 2018 was worthless bullshit in November 2019. But for now, for today, for this week – it is worth celebrating.
The key for Ireland is to keep improving. What this series win has provided is the credit to experiment a little more freely in November and in the 2023 Six Nations. We learned in 2019 that doubling down too early leaves you stale and undercooked come the World Cup. We still have time to build a deeper, wider squad even at the expense of short-term results if it comes to that.
If Andy Farrell can do that, even more history might await.
Whatever happens, it feels like there’s nothing we can’t do right now and that feeling, that authentic belief, is worth an awful lot.
Notable Players
You know Josh Van Der Flier is world-class. I know he’s world-class. Everyone knows he’s world-class. He showed it again here under big pressure but are you surprised? I doubt it. That’s just what he does. He performs. Van Der Flier is one of those guys that rarely has a three-star game off his own back. If the pack is on-top, Van Der Flier will always have a stormer because what he brings doesn’t change. As a small forward, the one thing that was holding Van Der Flier back as a player was a lack of a carrying game in the middle channel of the pitch – I know, I know – but he worked on it, and fixed it. If he didn’t, he’d be a guy who doesn’t jump in the lineout, and doesn’t rotate onto the ball with power so, in the modern game, he would be obsolete. By adding that carrying game, he made himself a core starter because he fits alongside any other build you want to run with.
Watch him in this game and look for mistakes – you won’t find any. He’s the ultimate small forward build flanker at the moment whether you’re playing off-ball or on-ball rugby as a standard. Perfection. ★★★★★
Robbie Henshaw needed a huge game to shut down the All Blacks backline build and, in tandem with Josh Van Der Flier, he did. We knew we were going to give them a lot of deep kicking opportunities so we needed our small forward and our outside centre to gobble up a tonne of space and stop runners deep and they did. It won us the game.
Henshaw’s pace, agility and stopping power left the All Blacks with very few places to go on our counter-transition set ups so, despite carrying way less than he would usually, he dominated the key area of the game he needed to dominate to allow Ireland to win. Big boy, elite level stuff. ★★★★★
Psst.
Hey.
Hey you.
Want to see a guy playing an all-time great game in a historic series decider?
Tadhg Beirne is very, very good. Everyone knows it. What he did in this game went beyond very good and delved into the realm of the legendary.
Has any one player played a game as impactful and genuinely game-changing as this? When the All Blacks were really pushing in the second half post-role-switch and framework tweak, there was a danger that Ireland might lose control of the scoreboard and, with it, bleed out of the series. Tadhg Beirne just said “not today”. Performances like this are rare enough – except when you’re Tadhg Beirne. He’s been doing this for years at this stage. He defies conventional positional wisdom because he’s 6’6″, the best jackal in the game and still arguably too light for the modern second row. But it doesn’t matter. Show me a back-five forward more complete than Beirne right now? Show me someone with his lineout work on both sides of the ball. His maul defence. Show me someone at his weight who’s as solid in the scrum. Show me someone with his smarts on the offensive maul. Show me a guy with his passing skill set and ability to make a genuine break in that middle slot of the attacking framework. Show me a guy at his height who’s better in all facets of defence.
You can’t. They don’t exist. You can only show me a picture of Tadhg Beirne for all of those things. He’s the best in the world at what he does. Show this game to your kids when they ask to see what the complete back-five forward looks like. Elite. ★★★★★
The Wally Ratings: All Blacks (A)
The Wally Ratings explainer page is here.
Players are rated based on their time on the pitch, if they were playing notably out of position, and on the overall curve of the team performance. DNP means the player did not feature and N/A means they weren’t on the pitch long enough to warrant a fair rating.
| Names | Rating |
|---|---|
| Andrew Porter | ★★★★ |
| Dan Sheehan | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Furlong | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★★★ |
| James Ryan | ★★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★★ |
| Josh Van Der Flier | ★★★★★ |
| Caelan Doris | ★★★★ |
| Jamison Gibson Park | ★★★★ |
| Johnny Sexton | ★★★★ |
| James Lowe | ★★★★ |
| Bundee Aki | ★★★★ |
| Robbie Henshaw | ★★★★★ |
| Mack Hansen | ★★★★ |
| Hugo Keenan | ★★★★ |
| Rob Herring | ★★★★ |
| Cian Healy | ★★★★ |
| Finlay Bealham | ★★★★ |
| Kieran Treadwell | ★★★★ |
| Jack Conan | ★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★ |
| Joey Carbery | ★★★ |
| Keith Earls | ★★★ |
