OPINION:
Gregor Paul in Lyon
When, in 2016, Ireland beat the All Blacks for the first time, it was a victory that gave the Irish players their place in history and a moment in time to celebrate.
When, in 2022, Ireland won a three-test series in
Rugby World Cup 2023: All Blacks story of redemption waiting to be written in potential quarter-final v Ireland - Gregor Paul
All Blacks captain Sam Kane. New Zealand All Blacks vs Ireland. Sky Stadium, Wellington. Saturday 16th July 2022. Copyright Photo: Grant Down / www.photosport.nz NZH 04Aug22 -
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It signalled that the Irish, after aspiring for 111 years to one day record a solitary victory against the All Blacks, had usurped New Zealand as the smarter, more innovative and resilient rugby power.
It was a series in which Ireland were everything the All Blacks were not: structured, disciplined, assured, calm, confident and certain about how they wanted to play and which players to pick.
It was a series in which the Irish showed, or at least provided a painful reminder, that modern rugby is built on the power and efficiency of the set-piece, the ferocity and technical precision of collisions, the quality of decision-making and the accuracy of pass and catch.
Ireland played simple but brilliant rugby in New Zealand, and while Ian Foster’s team have endured all sorts of highs and lows in the last four years – all of which have contributed to their growth and development – none forced a more considered or dramatic reshape of the All Blacks than that series defeat.
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Ireland’s 2-1 victory was the most formative three weeks of the last four years – it was the defeat that rocked the All Blacks so hard that it saw coaches get the sack.
It was a defeat that enabled Foster to see that his team was not reaching the standards it needed to in various facets of their basic play, and it was the defeat that ultimately saw the All Blacks begin a major rejuvenation project that has seen them transform into a vastly different team in the last 15 months.
“Very much, so I reckon,” said Foster was asked if that series last year was the pivotal moment in redirecting him and his All Blacks.
“I don’t think we got surprised in that series from what we were dealt but we realised that there were a couple of areas where our benchmark wasn’t high enough.
“We realised that we had to make a bit of a step shift in a couple of areas to get what we needed to.
“You can’t give top teams a couple of lineout drive tries against you for example and expect to come out and beat them consistently. We had to work hard in a couple of areas – we still are - that obviously being one.”
That defeat effectively ended, or put on hold, the test careers of a number of players – Akira Ioane, Hoskins Sotutu, Angus Ta’avao, Pita Gus Sowakula, Roger Tuivasa-Scheck and George Bridge – have all been eased out since that series.
In their place have come the likes of Ethan de Groot, Tyrel Lomax, Fletcher Newell, Shannon Frizell and Mark Telea, while Jordie Barrett has been reinvented as a midfielder and Richie Mo’unga has been established as the premier No 10.
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What Ireland did was reinforce the need for the All Blacks to find physically imposing, robust athletes who can win the collision warfare and play a bit of rugby as well.
And not just in the forwards either. Ireland were physical across the park and this has been the ongoing quest for the All Blacks – to build their foundations of scrum, lineout, breakdown, dominant tackle and yet do so with the same technical brilliance as Ireland.
To do so with the same discipline as the Irish, as probably, the most poignant lesson they taught the All Blacks last year was the value of control.
“We also learned in that series, quite frankly, you want 15 players on the park. The second test was a shambles with cards and in the third test there was a card that we came right back into that game when they went down to 14 men, and they should have stayed at 14 men for the rest of the game.
“We have learned the importance of that. It was an uppercut we got, but to be fair we have had those uppercuts before, but sometimes you get an uppercut, but you come out of the winning side of it.”
No one was thanking Ireland at the time, but they have played a critical role in rebuilding Foster’s team.
They exposed all sorts of shortcomings that the All Blacks have been on a quest to fix, while not succumbing entirely to being purely a physical team.
Foster and his coaching group have been in search of this Irish-inspired mix of controlled brutality, combined with a quintessential All Blacks’ ability to move the ball and exploit space.
How close they have got to finding what they are looking for and being the team they want to be will be found out next week, and possibly – probably - the moment of truth will come in a quarterfinal against Ireland.
It’s a script that couldn’t be better written: the All Blacks afforded the opportunity to redress the power balance and re-establish New Zealand as the dominant partner in what has been rugby’s greatest rivalry of the last seven years.
The All Blacks given the chance to show classic Kiwi resilience and innovation by being caught under the wheels of Ireland yet somehow managing to see, while they were there, the inner workings of the engine and how to copy it and improve it.
The story of redemption, if Ireland beat Scotland in their final pool match, will be sitting there waiting to be written.
“In 2022 we had a poor start to the season,” says Foster. “But we lost to a team that is world number one and played really well and we got smacked and that is okay. We took our medicine and I think we have been rebuilding nicely since then. I like where we are at and a little bit of adversity never hurt anyone if you use it well.
“I think the key to any path you walk on is that you own your errors, and you get on with it.”
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