Following the All Blacks’ 23-13 victory over Ireland in their Autumn Nations Series clash, here’s our five takeaways from Friday’s fixture at the Aviva Stadium.
The top line
A masterclass of wet weather rugby from the All Blacks, led by Player of the Match Damian McKenzie and skipper Ardie Savea, saw Ireland beaten in Dublin for the first time in three-and-a-half years.
Six penalties off the tee and a try from Will Jordan was enough to create a 10-point gap for New Zealand in a game where Ireland struggled to find rhythm and continuity, despite a brilliant performance on the openside from Josh van der Flier, who crossed for Ireland’s sole try.
Discipline killed Ireland; their nuisance at the breakdown is always a given, but whilst Van der Flier and Tadhg Beirne did their best to create their customary chaos, a penalty count of 13 to five against the hosts gave them absolutely no foothold to get back into the game.
It was a game of the tightest of margins and one where error count was always going to be telling. New Zealand delivered an outstanding performance, possibly even better than their win at Twickenham last week.
Breakdown energy
The battle at the breakdown was the key to the match and one fought tooth and nail by both sides. Ireland were, however, just an inch away from their very best and in games of the tightest margins, inaccuracy is severely punished.
Ireland always ruck past the ball with energy – but on Friday, their tacklers consistently failed to roll out of contact, preventing the customary steal opportunities and, as a result, conceding five penalties, three of which were in kickable range, gifting nine of the ten points that separated the two sides.
Whilst the Irish back-row rucked themselves to a standstill, the intellect and precision of the New Zealand back-row countered the hosts with every clear and steal. As the game went on, Savea’s interventions in both attack and defence became more and more important – he was absolutely immense – whether it be stealing on his own line or popping up in the wide channels to grant continuity.
It was an immense battle – but one that was just shaded by New Zealand, and they should be commended for keeping their penalty count to five, a key stat in the context of the game.
New Zealand exit key
In both the England game and in Dublin on Friday, New Zealand have allowed less than 10 minutes of opposition pressure in their own 22.
Key to this is McKenzie and Jordie Barrett’s ability to clear long – massive clearing kicks that take play to the centre of the field and removes the build up of pressure in their own red zone. Between McKenzie and Barrett, they nailed 12 kicks in exit that landed the other side of their own 10 metre line, a phenomenal effort.
Coupled with the exit was the way New Zealand coped with and defended the Irish maul drives. They stayed legal, clasping in hard and low to repel drives and to remove momentum at source. The harder Ireland tried, the lower and closer the All Blacks defended, led by a massive performance from skipper Scott Barrett.
It was a masterclass of pragmatism from a side more recognised for their flair, and one where New Zealand showed immense rugby smarts to close out a world class attacking side.
Set-piece
On the subject of Scott Barrett, his work in the lineout was out of the highest order, both in terms of technicalities, but also, crucially in terms of pure streetwise gamesmanship.
He and Tupou Vaa’i took every opportunity to close down Ireland’s gap, sometimes legally, often not so legally, but in every instance it was mightily effective, as Ireland blew four of their own throws, three of them when they had a territorial foothold in the Irish half.
All Blacks put lacklustre Ireland to the sword to bring 19-game home winning streak to a swift end
Starved of possession at lineout time, the scrum creaked and rumbled, but just about fell the way of New Zealand too. Andrew Porter and Finlay Bealham (returning to the field after an injury to replacement Tom O’Toole) had massive games in terms of workload and defence. Porter in particular was immense in his work, nailing 11 tackles, two of them dominant, a massive shift from Ireland’s world class loosehead.
Although Ireland held on, they conceded two kicked penalties from collapsing or going around the corner, and it was clear that they missed the great Tadhg Furlong and the magnificent Dan Sheehan enormously, despite the gallant efforts of Bealham and Ronan Kelleher.
Work-ons
For Ireland, it’ll all be about precision and continuity – the keys to their game and qualities that they simply didn’t bring to this match. They looked laboured and inaccurate in their loop and running moves, something we rarely see from an Irish side who pride themselves in absolute precision.
They also, very surprisingly, lost the aerial battle, despite the efforts of Mack Hansen and James Lowe. It wasn’t the chasing so much, more so the consistent over-kicking of the high ball and clearance, getting 10 metres too much on their efforts and ensuring that the All Blacks had a clear option to catch on the grand majority of their kicks.
Those work-ons, coupled with greater legality and precision at ruck time are easy and quick fixes; Ireland were slow and sluggish out of the traps on Friday and they’ll know precisely what they need to do to improve.
For New Zealand, the big work-on focus will be on the half-back continuity. Put bluntly, Cortez Ratima had an absolute shocker in the first half, struggling to get clean ball out of rucks, getting charged down and showing horrible inaccuracy with his passing. He is no Aaron Smith – who is? But you expect more from an All Blacks scrum-half than his stuttering and inaccurate performance that was seen in Dublin, and Cam Roigard looked a step up when he came on.
Other than that, Scott Robertson is two from two but what he’ll be really pleased about is it’s structure and process, parts of his coaching that were questioned when he was appointed, rather than pure flair in attack, that’s getting New Zealand over the line in these close matches.
When the attack starts to click there’s little doubt the All Blacks will grow out of their transition into a formidable side and we saw the blueprint of that evolution on Friday in Dublin.