Josh Kronfeld: Passion could only take Irish so far

Hosea Gear had another impressive game for the All Blacks. Photo / Getty Images

You've got to hand it to the Irish. They can go down in a game by 20 points but still provide a really entertaining game.

A lot of European teams are very passionate and can live off that passion for a good 40 minutes, which worked in Ireland's favour this morning.

That passion can only take you so far though. It just takes time to wear them down and that's just what happened in the All Blacks' victory.

The All Blacks threw some good constructive attack at the home side but Ireland justified themselves by defending really well. There were some attacking phases from the All Blacks that were endless and the Irish stoically took them on.

The most impressive feat by the Irish was that they completely shut down the All Blacks' midfield. Sonny Bill Williams came on and it didn't change.

You go from Ma'a Nonu who is incredibly abrasive and a scintillating attacker especially from loose play and they shut him down. Then Sonny Bill who has a similar style but can get his hands free and they shut him down as well. You've got to give Ireland some credit and they did a lot.

However everything the All Blacks did today was well executed. We were patient, took our opportunities well and didn't force the issue which has been something that has held us up before.

Sure we didn't score a try every time we had to ball but we retained it and were really patient. We typically haven't done well with ball retention lately it was amazing to see the accuracy with the ball in hand.

The try against us surprised everyone but it's a good reminder that when you're hot on attack you've also got to be hot on defence and pretty much Ireland had no ball for that entire time and the small amount of ball they had, the made good use of it.

From the possession that Ireland had they showed that we aren't totally sure of our defensive patterns. We were the holders of the ball when doing majority of attack so when the ball did get turned over it was off loose ball, which it where they scored both their tries.

When they did have the ball for a long time, especially in that last 10 minutes, we didn't let them over.

For entertainment value it was the best of the three matches in Europe so far. It was enjoyable to sit down and watch, especially that first half with a bit of interchanging of the scores is always nice.

You could definitely tell that at some point in time the All Blacks were going to take control of the game and cruise away but if Ireland had scored another try before halftime and gone into the break ahead it might have kept them in the game a lot longer.

It was just a really strong, clean effort by the All Blacks. Even the changes they made bolstered what they were doing.

Kieran Read was involved in everything and to get the two tries was a nice little finish to another brilliant performance from a player who just improves every week.

In terms of the backs Hosea Gear looked dangerous every time he touched the ball. He broke three or four tackles every time. Out of all the backs, Mils Muliaina had a good game as usual, but every time Hosea got the ball he just looked dangerous.

I'm stunned because every time he touched the ball today it reminded me that for the last two or three years everyone has been saying 'How come this guy isn't an All Black?'. It's not like he's been playing poor rugby.

I was a bit disappointed that Liam Messam didn't get on. After last week's game I really thought he offered us something so it would have been nice to see him get a run on. There's always next week against the Welsh.

Josh Kronfeld was talking to nzherald.co.nz sports editor Cameron McMillan.

- Herald online