NEW ZEALAND TURNED heads with their 96-17 victory over Italy on Friday night, running in 14 tries against the Six Nations outfit to virtually seal a quarter-final against either Ireland, South Africa or Scotland.

On Monday’s Rugby Weekly Extra podcast, which is available exclusively to The 42 subscribers, Murray Kinsella and Bernard Jackman joined Gavan Casey to look ahead to Ireland’s pivotal pool game against Scotland this Saturday but equally to assess the All Blacks, who will lie in wait for Ireland should Andy Farrell’s side earn a ninth consecutive win over the Scots in Paris.

Kinsella said that while Italy’s performance strayed over the border towards “disgraceful”, New Zealand’s performance laid down a marker ahead of any last-eight tie. Jackman, meanwhile, believes that a prospective quarter-final between Ireland and New Zealand would be a 50-50 game.

“This team doesn’t have the quality of the 2015 World Cup-winning squad — I don’t think anyone does,” Kinsella said of Ian Foster’s All Blacks. “And in comparison to previous All Black teams, this doesn’t feel like it’s as potent a unit. We’ve just seen them lose matches to the other top sides over the past couple of years.

“And yet, if you get them in a World Cup quarter-final, you have every chance of losing that because they still possess so many weapons.

“Obviously, Ireland are among the favourites for the World Cup but I think New Zealand would love to actually play them and set the record straight.

“They got beaten on home soil in a series for the first time ever [by Ireland] last summer and it’s probably been simmering away. I think it’s driven an improvement from them and clearly, it drove changes to the coaching team around Ian Foster with Joe Schmidt coming in full-time, with Jason Ryan coming in and adding a little bit of edge to the forwards.

“I still think that, from a purely objective point of view, Ireland or South Africa are a better team, and France have just that bit more might and grunt, but the All Blacks are still absolutely lethal.

“That Italy game was a statement: ‘Listen, if you get us in a quarter-final, we’re going to be really hard to defend. Maybe you’ll feel that your forward pack can get on top of ours but there’s not going to be a moment of comfort.’

“As there wasn’t in New Zealand for that summer series, really.

Again, people should go back and have a look at that third test. It wasn’t the cakewalk that maybe is remembered in some quarters. Ireland had to absolutely grit it out in the last quarter — Tadhg Beirne came up with some phenomenal, grandstand plays to keep them ahead.

“It was a tough-fought series and if Ireland get New Zealand in a quarter-final — and I know they’ve still got to beat Scotland, let’s acknowledge that — it will be a hell of a battle.”

Former Ireland hooker Jackman added that, if Ireland were to beat Scotland and book a last-eight meeting with the All Blacks, the contest would come down to the “toss of a coin” on paper.

“I think we can beat them,” Jackman added. “It’d be a little bit like France-New Zealand, to be fair, where New Zealand hurt France on a couple of occasions but France didn’t really panic, they stayed in the game.

You’re going to concede line-breaks against New Zealand, no matter how good your defence is, because of how good their first-phase attack is but also their general skillset and power and pace.

“But I also don’t think that, defensively, they’re anywhere near as good as the Springboks. And I’m also not sure about their front five; even though, individually, all of those players could play for top European clubs and some of them are legends of the game, I’m just not sure that they’re as well-drilled as Ireland’s pack, even with their change of forwards coach.

“And people will say, ‘Oh, what about Ireland’s lineout?’ or whatever, but I think at the moment that our pack are playing at a level that they’re not actually getting credit for.

“And it’s going to be really important this weekend against Scotland. Effectively, against South Africa, we were hoping our pack could hold the line against the ‘Boks. Whereas against Scotland or New Zealand, they’re actually going to have to be dominant.

“It’s amazing because we’ve built up our attacking game so much but it’s going to become less and less relevant now as we go. Of course, it has to be effective, but there are going to be way less opportunities. Games are going to become more cagey and people will play the percentages more — even us.”