WE ALL KNOW what happened the last time Ireland and New Zealand met, but for a large portion of Andy Farrell’s squad, Saturday’s fixture at the Aviva Stadium will be their first encounter against the mighty All Blacks.
The hope is that that element of the unknown represents a good thing, with those players going into the game buoyed by self-belief rather than being weighed down by past experiences, which has been the case for so many Ireland teams down the decades.
Caelan Doris, Ronan Kelleher, Hugo Keenan and even the more experienced Jack Conan are just some of the players who have never stood and faced the Haka at Test level. It will also be a surreal experience for Jamison Gibson-Park and James Lowe if they are selected to line out against the country of their birth.
No matter how well prepared those players are, there’s always been a bit of an aura around the black jersey.
For Ireland captain Johnny Sexton, part of his role this week involves making sure those players are mentally prepared for what they will face come Saturday afternoon.
Sexton first played against New Zealand at Test level in June 2010. Introduced off the bench in place of Ronan O’Gara, Declan Kidney’s side were trailing 59-21 when Sexton entered the action for the final 10 minutes.
His first start against the All Blacks arrived later that year, a 38-18 loss in one of the first games at the newly redeveloped Aviva Stadium.
“I was blown away by the speed of the game, the physicality,” Sexton says.
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Sexton first played against New Zealand at Test level in 2010. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
“But I think that’s international rugby, there is a big difference. They epitomise that. It’s sort of not letting that shock you, being prepared for it. We trained well today (Tuesday), we trained at a high speed with a view to what it’s going to be like on Saturday. That’s the thing you have to be prepared for.”
Sexton’s experiences against New Zealand have often been painful ones. He had six defeats against them in a green jersey before Chicago 2016 finally saw an Ireland team get over the line. Since then, he’s lost two, won one against the All Blacks with Ireland. Add to that one loss, one draw and one win with the Lions. If anyone in this squad appreciates the task at hand, it’s Sexton.
“There were a lot of scars for me. You go back to 2013, where we missed a shot at goal that would have put us two scores clear with probably eight minutes left, they held the ball for four minutes and scored and got two chances at the conversion, that was a huge scar,” he continues.
That was something that took us a long time to get over, took me a long time to get over but again, once you learn from it and bounce back from it, then we had the big win in Chicago and then we backed that up at home when we beat them (2018).
“Nothing ever comes easy against them but that’s what happens when you’re the best in the world. You’ve got to go and work for it. We’re willing to work for it and we’re going to give it our best shot.”
The two teams have had very different lead-ins to this game. The All Blacks arrive towards the end of a long, gruelling tour, with a much-changed team making a series of uncharacteristic errors before blowing Italy out of the water last week. At the same time, Ireland were delivering a statement performance against an admittedly poor Japan, Andy Farrell’s side playing some superb attacking rugby while racking up nine tries in Dublin.
Sexton was superb for Ireland against Japan. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
Sexton acknowledged that going forward, Ireland will need to adapt their game plan depending on the opposition, but the appetite and intent to play positive, open rugby is clearly there.
“There’s going to be times when we go back to kicking, you know what I mean?,” he explains.
“If we’re not getting good ball, if we’re getting slow ball, if it’s lashing rain, if teams are getting on top of us with the defence…like, Andy’s first couple of games in charge were against Wales and Scotland where we had some great attacking things, so it is something that we’ve been working on for a long time.
“Then we went to England and we came unstuck because we tried to do the same thing against a different type of defence.
So the next step for us is to pick and choose when to do it, I think that’s the thing that we’re doing better now, that we know when to go and when not to. I thought we did that quite well on Saturday and there’s a couple of times that we need to learn from but it’s always been there.
“We played some fantastic rugby under Joe (Schmidt) as well. Joe always gave us licence to go out and play but he also knew that we had some players in the backline that could dominate in the air and so at times we went to that.
“At one stage we had five Gaelic footballers in our backline and we used to go to the air because they were unbelievable at it and it was clever coaching. So it’s a little bit of everything there.”
Ireland’s strengths will become more apparent as this team continues to develop under Farrell and his coaches. New Zealand’s strengths haven’t changed much across Sexton’s years on the international stage.
“That clinical edge. You have to take your chances,” Sexton says. “Because more often than not, they take theirs.
“You have to be clinical. They are very clinical. Sometimes they might not be in the game for 10 or 15 minutes and suddenly they’re underneath your posts having got a try intercept or a loose scrap and they’re gone. They’re very good at that.
“Obviously they’ve got some brilliant athletes across the park that can hurt you at any stage. We’ve got to be together this week, connected and make sure we look after each other in all those areas.”
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Sexton urges Ireland to be clinical in the face of All Blacks' intensity
LAST UPDATE | 10 Nov 2021
WE ALL KNOW what happened the last time Ireland and New Zealand met, but for a large portion of Andy Farrell’s squad, Saturday’s fixture at the Aviva Stadium will be their first encounter against the mighty All Blacks.
The hope is that that element of the unknown represents a good thing, with those players going into the game buoyed by self-belief rather than being weighed down by past experiences, which has been the case for so many Ireland teams down the decades.
Caelan Doris, Ronan Kelleher, Hugo Keenan and even the more experienced Jack Conan are just some of the players who have never stood and faced the Haka at Test level. It will also be a surreal experience for Jamison Gibson-Park and James Lowe if they are selected to line out against the country of their birth.
No matter how well prepared those players are, there’s always been a bit of an aura around the black jersey.
For Ireland captain Johnny Sexton, part of his role this week involves making sure those players are mentally prepared for what they will face come Saturday afternoon.
Sexton first played against New Zealand at Test level in June 2010. Introduced off the bench in place of Ronan O’Gara, Declan Kidney’s side were trailing 59-21 when Sexton entered the action for the final 10 minutes.
His first start against the All Blacks arrived later that year, a 38-18 loss in one of the first games at the newly redeveloped Aviva Stadium.
“I was blown away by the speed of the game, the physicality,” Sexton says.
“But I think that’s international rugby, there is a big difference. They epitomise that. It’s sort of not letting that shock you, being prepared for it. We trained well today (Tuesday), we trained at a high speed with a view to what it’s going to be like on Saturday. That’s the thing you have to be prepared for.”
Sexton’s experiences against New Zealand have often been painful ones. He had six defeats against them in a green jersey before Chicago 2016 finally saw an Ireland team get over the line. Since then, he’s lost two, won one against the All Blacks with Ireland. Add to that one loss, one draw and one win with the Lions. If anyone in this squad appreciates the task at hand, it’s Sexton.
“There were a lot of scars for me. You go back to 2013, where we missed a shot at goal that would have put us two scores clear with probably eight minutes left, they held the ball for four minutes and scored and got two chances at the conversion, that was a huge scar,” he continues.
“Nothing ever comes easy against them but that’s what happens when you’re the best in the world. You’ve got to go and work for it. We’re willing to work for it and we’re going to give it our best shot.”
The two teams have had very different lead-ins to this game. The All Blacks arrive towards the end of a long, gruelling tour, with a much-changed team making a series of uncharacteristic errors before blowing Italy out of the water last week. At the same time, Ireland were delivering a statement performance against an admittedly poor Japan, Andy Farrell’s side playing some superb attacking rugby while racking up nine tries in Dublin.
Sexton acknowledged that going forward, Ireland will need to adapt their game plan depending on the opposition, but the appetite and intent to play positive, open rugby is clearly there.
“There’s going to be times when we go back to kicking, you know what I mean?,” he explains.
“If we’re not getting good ball, if we’re getting slow ball, if it’s lashing rain, if teams are getting on top of us with the defence…like, Andy’s first couple of games in charge were against Wales and Scotland where we had some great attacking things, so it is something that we’ve been working on for a long time.
“Then we went to England and we came unstuck because we tried to do the same thing against a different type of defence.
“We played some fantastic rugby under Joe (Schmidt) as well. Joe always gave us licence to go out and play but he also knew that we had some players in the backline that could dominate in the air and so at times we went to that.
“At one stage we had five Gaelic footballers in our backline and we used to go to the air because they were unbelievable at it and it was clever coaching. So it’s a little bit of everything there.”
Ireland’s strengths will become more apparent as this team continues to develop under Farrell and his coaches. New Zealand’s strengths haven’t changed much across Sexton’s years on the international stage.
“That clinical edge. You have to take your chances,” Sexton says. “Because more often than not, they take theirs.
“You have to be clinical. They are very clinical. Sometimes they might not be in the game for 10 or 15 minutes and suddenly they’re underneath your posts having got a try intercept or a loose scrap and they’re gone. They’re very good at that.
“Obviously they’ve got some brilliant athletes across the park that can hurt you at any stage. We’ve got to be together this week, connected and make sure we look after each other in all those areas.”
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Autumn nations Series Ireland Johnny Sexton taking your chances New Zealand