Wednesday, November 17, 2010
JUST as Scottish rugby was beginning to feel good about itself again after a string of impressive winning performances against Ireland and a double away to Argentina, the All Blacks came to town.
The Scots were on a high for the first time in years and this was reflected when a crowd of 57,000 returned to Murrayfield Saturday to witness further signs of the renaissance under Andy Robinson. After just 25 minutes with four tries and 28 points on board, New Zealand had swatted them aside.
The All Blacks have a habit of doing that to teams. Robinson, who has worked wonders since his elevation to national coach, felt compelled to apologise for letting down a nation.
So after a disappointing opening two games in the November series, the question is where will Irish rugby be at 7pm on Saturday evening and could the mood of the country, already trembling at the prospect of a multi-billion euro EU bailout, be even worse?
South Africa may hold the title of world champions but New Zealand remain the marquee name in world rugby.
That fact will be forcibly underlined on Saturday as Graham Henry’s men look like the first side with the drawing power to attract a capacity crowd to the Aviva Stadium this month.
There is something special about watching the All Blacks playing rugby and it goes far beyond the colour of their jersey and the Haka. There is so much rubbish written about the Haka — should it be banned, how should teams react to it, does it give them an unfair advantage? The Haka is as influential as you allow it to be. As a player, I enjoyed the experience of facing it and I think some opposition get too fixated on it.
Legendary New Zealand captain Seán Fitzpatrick described it as "the most unbelievable way to start work". Those who face it the most — Australia — take it for what it is and just get on with it. Ireland should do likewise.
I’m sure there are enough things occupying Declan Kidney’s mind other than the Haka. The biggest challenge for Kidney and his management team is two-fold: to come up with a blueprint for his players to win this game and secondly to generate the confidence necessary to execute that plan.
Ireland have gone down the road in recent times of kicking less and looking to develop their recycling, offloading game but have been hampered somewhat by poor execution and adverse weather conditions.
The problem against this New Zealand outfit is that if you try to engage them in a broken field, unstructured game, you will play right into their hands. They are the masters of what I call the game within the game. In other words, if you park the necessity for scrums and lineouts and just play, New Zealand would destroy all comers.
That is not to say that they are vulnerable in those key facets of the game. They are not. It is just that they don’t fret about it. Their scrum struggled recently against England but it was not a significant factor in the game. The difference between them and Ireland in the scrum at present is that they can produce a solid unit when they have to. And the same is true of their lineout.
In the continued absence of their best lineout operator, Ali Williams, they have improvised and introduced a number of promising young locks including Tim Donnelly, Sam Whitelock and Anthony Boric. Yet even against Victor Matfield and company they regularly produce the goods against South Africa. Scotland sought to attack them in this area by selecting two giant 6’ 8" inch second rows in Jim Hamilton and Richie Gray without much success.
One of the reasons for this is that New Zealand refuse to kick to touch, thus denying the opposition a key source of possession. On the other hand, they have made taking quick lineout throws an art-form in order to counter attack. As a consequence, New Zealand tend to score a high percentage of tries from breakouts initiated from their own half.
In this respect the crowd in the Aviva have a part to play given that the seats in the lower deck are so close to the pitch. If Ireland choose to kick direct to touch on Saturday they must ensure that the ball lands in the first few rows and that the spectators touch the ball. That will immediately negate the option of the quick throw.
The key difference between New Zealand and most sides is that they play with tremendous width at all times, facilitated by the fact that their front five forwards, regularly positioned out in the five-metre channel parallel to the touchline, are as skilful as most backs.
They never panic in possession and even their props regularly make the right call when it comes to deciding whether to run, offload or even when to put in a well-placed grubber kick.
Playing with such width enables them to challenge the opposition’s defensive line to the full. The only way to stop their offloading game, which has found a new dimension with the talents of rugby league convert Sonny Bill Williams, is to go for a double hit (one defender goes low to stop the momentum while another hits high, looking to envelop the hands and prevent the offload).
The danger, of course, with this is that it sucks in bodies quickly and if New Zealand do manage to get the pass away it is inevitable that they will manufacture the overlap.
The solution is not to give them possession and pin them in their own 22. To achieve this, however, your kick chase game has to be top drawer. That aspect of Ireland’s play has been poor in recent weeks and that is a big worry.
It is one of the great mysteries of international rugby that Ireland have failed to beat New Zealand in any of their 23 meetings, a 10-10 draw in 1973 is the best we have managed. By way of contrast England, against whom we have a very decent record, have beaten New Zealand six times in 34 meetings with a draw thrown in for good measure.
There is no particular reason why this should be the case, especially when one considers our record against Australia and South Africa since the game went professional. The odds are stacked against Ireland but I have the distinct feeling that they have been stung by recent criticism and will deliver a far more positive performance on Saturday. With both management teams opting to hold their cards close to the chest and not announce their respective teams until Thursday, I will look in greater detail at the tactical approach to the game on Saturday.
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