When Andy Farrell decided to make just two changes for this upcoming second test against New Zealand, he and his team set off on a narrow road that ends in vindication or ruin.
That’s a bit dramatic, I know, but I think it’s close enough to the truth. The last year of Andy Farrell’s reign has been good – very good – compared to what went before it but another loss this weekend in the vein of what happened last weekend and he’ll be right back to where he was in 2020 with the very real perception that we’re a bit of a soft touch away from home and, just like 2019, that we peaked the year before the World Cup between July 2021 and July 2022.
On the “soft touch away from home” count, our last three years look like this.
In 2020, Ireland played four away games and lost them all.
In 2021, Ireland played three games away from home. We won two – away to Italy, as expected, and with the last kick of the game against Scotland – before in Wales.
In 2022, we’ve played four away games so far (including the uncapped game against the Maori) and lost three. The game we won in London against England has the asterisk of being played against 14 men for 80 minutes and only pulling away in the last 15 minutes.
If we don’t pull a win out of the next three games – which is far from guaranteed – we’ll finish a calendar year losing six out of seven games on the road. Not a good omen coming into a road load Six Nations in 2023 where we’re away three times and then a World Cup in France later that year.
When I talk about peaking in this context, I’m talking about that 10-game streak between July 2021 and July 2022 where we won nine out of ten games, earned a Triple Crown in the Six Nations and beat New Zealand in Dublin. Was that as good as it gets for this Irish squad?
Last week’s game featured more or less the same team and pack build that beat England in this year’s Six Nations. While we didn’t play poorly, we still ended up losing 42-19. So, objectively, I get the idea of giving more or less the same team that played last week a shot at righting the wrongs of Eden Park but when you, essentially, give every player that underperformed another go where you either directly or indirectly tell them “they need a big one”, you back yourself into a corner. We’re backing the cohesive unit – the most cohesive unit in test rugby – to fix the errors from last week, but what if they don’t?
If Ireland win the second test, then it was all justified. If we lose, we’re then left with a real quandary. What do we change? Who do we change? Do we keep doubling down for the third test to come away with something from the tour? How many of the guys we’ve scoped to play the Māori game next Wednesday do we play in the third test if we lose on Saturday morning?
That’s the risk of a selection like this. In reality, I think a loss tomorrow more than likely sees more or less the same team trying to pull something out for the third test because, for the most part since July 2021, that’s been what Farrell has done when big games roll around.
New Zealand: 15. Jordie Barrett, 14. Sevu Reece, 13. Rieko Ioane, 12. Quinn Tupaea, 11. Leicester Fainga’anuku, 10. Beauden Barrett, 9. Aaron Smith, 1. George Bower, 2. Codie Taylor, 3. Ofa Tu’ungafasi, 4. Brodie Retallick, 5. Scott Barrett, 6. Dalton Papalii, 7. Sam Cane, 8. Ardie Savea
Replacements: 16. Samisoni Taukei’aho, 17. Aidan Ross, 18. Angus Ta’avao, 19. Patrick Tuipulotu, 20. Pita Gus Sowakula, 21. Folau Fakatava, 22. Richie Mo’unga, 23. Will Jordan
When you see Dalton Papalii – stepping into the back row for Scott Barrett, who himself is stepping back into the second row for the injured Sam Whitelock – talking about what he thinks his role is this weekend, you get a real taste for how New Zealand win games like this. How they view the opposition. How they weaponise physicality.
“The role of a six, in my opinion, is more of a hitman, so I have just got to try and smack someone early on. I’m going to add my flavour to the jersey early on, go out there and do my job. I’ve got to do that first and then maybe get a few hits like Retallick does.”
That is not a guy who’s intending to go out there and have a fine sporting contest. He’s going out there to collect skulls. As long as he doesn’t work himself into a shoot by getting a red card or a yellow card that hurts the team (not all yellow cards hurt the team) then he’ll be right where he needs to be.
What the All Blacks understand better than anyone else is that test rugby isn’t a contact sport. It’s not a collision sport, either. It’s a combat sport. The deepest respect any All Blacks side can pay you is by going safeties off, live fire, full metal jacket in a test match. If you don’t match them there, they beat you every single time. It’s as much mental and emotional as it is physical.
Why is Johnny Sexton starting? Well, among many other things, because he gets that part of the game. Watch him after Ringrose sticks a shot on Sam Cane here.
He’s right there, whooping and hollering, looking down at Sam Cane, goading him, shouting “What a Hit!” nice and loud so New Zealand know that we know that we smashed their captain. That was a “fuck you” hit and Sexton added the extras.
We needed a little more of that and a little more guys willing to “go there”.
This moment late in the first half summed up my general feeling that we were unwilling to turn up the heat.
I just don’t want to see my biggest lock and a senior player getting hustled and harried by opposition half-backs like this. That moment there was one where Ryan could have got stuck in one of those players trying to rip the ball off him, drawn his opposite numbers in and then, in turn, drawn an emotional response out of the rest of his pack right before half time.
Instead, it passed us by. Until we sort out that passivity all the way across the squad and embrace being hated – yes, hated – by this country, we’ll always fall short when it counts.
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From a defensive perspective, I think we left a few shots out there last week. Squidge Rugby did a great video on Aaron Smith’s wide pod passing and the All Blacks’ structure off that passing in the first test – gazumping the article on the same topic I was writing this week, the fecker – but it was something we struggled to adapt to mid-game. Smith would often pass to the outside edge of the pod running off #9 and that width broke up our defensive pattern and, essentially, allowed the All Blacks to play “down slope”.
Smith passed the ball outside of our lead blitz defender so the All Blacks would often be running into slightly more space as a result. This opened up radiating options for their players on screens because the pass outside of the “peak” of our blitz threw the defenders outside that defender into confusing positions they weren’t used to defending.
We tried to adapt during the game with outside blitz attacks but they didn’t work either and destabilised our defensive patterns even further.
Smith’s edge passing off #9 attacks Ireland’s tendency to attack the breakdown – something the All Blacks struggled with against Ireland back in November.
To combat this style, I think Ireland should go hands-off at the breakdown, cede quick ball if it comes to it and use an outside-in blitz to ensure that when Smith tries to hit Retallick at the edge of the pod, he’s got James Ryan in his face. We can’t over chase the resulting breakdowns either because the All Blacks are very good at brutalising teams there. Take that battle away from them. Let’s get the likes of Robbie Henshaw attacking hard into screens, almost like a dagger into the ribcage to get some action on Barrett and Ioane on the screen. Ioane wants to be a midfielder now – let’s treat him like one. When he’s on the screen behind that edge runner, I want Henshaw blitzing hard into that screen space regardless of where the ball goes. For this to be effective we’ve got to be confrontational and brutal in contact. Take a penalty for a late shot or a tackle off the ball if it comes to it. We need to show these lads that we aren’t just going to let Smith pass us to death. If we stay out of the ruck, we’ll have an extra man floating in that space around the collision point to allow our midfield to be really aggressive on the screen.
To get the most out of this, we need to kick more and kick longer.
We kicked 20 times for 746m in this game, which is longer per kick on average than we normally do but we need to up that again and play some off-ball rugby against these lads. Kick long, chase, and let them play phase ball for a while. Let’s soften them up on the ball, let them hit rucks we aren’t contesting, let’s get them extending their lines, reducing their cleaners and THEN we switch up our defensive ruck with Beirne, O’Mahony and Porter.
If we do that, I think we can frustrate the All Blacks, force them into a lot of phase possession – where they didn’t do well outside of Irish mistakes last week – and play an uglier, nastier game.
Do it well enough, and we could win.
No need for doubling down, just more violence.
