The decision to switch Beauden Barrett to full-back and move to twin playmakers with Richie Mo’unga at fly-half continues to pay dividends for the All Blacks

Ireland will have to wait another four years for a crack at a first World Cup semi-final appearance after Joe Schmidt’s tenure as head coach came to an end with a comprehensive defeat to the world champions on Saturday.

Two exceptional events today, one in Tokyo the other in London, will set the mood of the nation.

Ireland’s tenacity versus New Zealand’s ruthlessness.

There was a time when Johnny Sexton’s schoolboy half-back partner in Japan was Vinny Hammond.

It was Samoa who provided the opposition for Joe Schmidt’s introduction to Test rugby as Ireland’s head coach, way back when in November 2013.

Joe Schmidt is hoping Ireland’s long lead-in to their final pool game will help his team put in the performance tomorrow that will take them into the World Cup quarter-finals.

England’s World Cup bid was just minutes old when Billy Vunipola launched himself into contact off the back of a lineout and Tonga’s Zane Kapeli floored him with a tackle that landed the big No 8 flat on his arse.

It’s probably not a great surprise that All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has revealed he’s not a great lover of social media.

Rassie Erasmus tried to play the game.

They were patting down sweat-filled brows around RTÉ’s control bunker yesterday as Montrose battled technical glitches at the start of Hugh Cahill and Donal Lenihan’s television commentary from Yokohama.

CAPE TOWN - After years of inane platitudes from All Black coach Steve Hansen about the rivalry with the Boks after his side racked up record scores against their old foes, things changed this week.

When rugby went professional — officially, at least — in 1995, Shannon won the first of their four-in-a-row AIL titles.

New Zealand bounced back from their record Test defeat to thrash Australia 36-0 in Auckland.

Simon Lewis The Munster exit door kept revolving yesterday as exciting young fly-half Bill Johnston left for Ulster in search of more game time and Heineken Cup-winning legend Doug Howlett decided to return to his native New Zealand.

Rhys Marshall has backed Ireland to turn their Six Nations disappointment into a ‘really hungry’ World Cup campaign when the national team heads to Japan this autumn.

Some of the reaction to Ireland’s defeat by England last weekend has been crazy, writes Donal Lenihan.

The last time the reigning Grand Slam champions dared to beat the All Blacks, they followed up by winning the World Cup within a matter of months, writes Peter Jackson.

Ireland have beaten the All Blacks for the second time in three years.

Chicago, November 2016 will forever be seared into the minds of Irish rugby supporters, for obvious reasons. The place and time of a first victory over New Zealand in 111 years has that effect and it was a moment to be savoured.

South Africa boss Rassie Erasmus has backed New Zealand to end the year as the world’s top-ranked Test team despite pressure from Ireland.

South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus had exaggeratedly suggested he could be looking for a new job if his side had lost to the All Blacks on Saturday, instead a 36-34 win showed his team were moving the right way towards next year’s Rugby World Cup.

By full time in Eden Park last weekend, so many history books were torn up that the bill might have bankrupted Beauden Barrett.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has included two uncapped players but made no selection surprises in his squad for this season’s Rugby Championship.

Everything may be rosy at Toulon following a 49-0 win over Clermont, but as they prepare to storm Thomond Park tomorrow, All Black Malakai Fekitoa has warned his superstar team-mates to expect a different challenge altogether from Munster.

Catch up on this morning's headlines..

Killing the opposition with kindness is the oldest trick in the sports PR book but Allister Coetzee’s respect for Ireland seems genuine given the Springbok head coach has labelled Joe Schmidt’s side as the northern hemisphere’s All Blacks.

It is a fair indication of how sport in general, and rugby in particular, has changed so very dramatically that New Zealand legend Colin Meads, who died aged 81 yesterday and stopped playing the game in 1971, was the same size as Irish centre Robbie Henshaw. 

MOST staunch New Zealand rugby people support the Black Ferns, four-time Women’s Rugby World Cup winners.

Strange sport, rugby. Purveyors of its best brand and keepers of its finest exponents for years, the All Blacks have been able to bestride the global game’s landscape like rugby gods, shrouded in mystique and an aura of invincibility.

They got the British & Irish Lions over the finish line in Wellington to keep this Test series with the All Blacks alive, now Warren Gatland has backed the same players to go out and make history in the decider at Eden Park on Saturday.

Donal Lenihan looks at three key areas the Lions must address.

New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen has warned “the job is far from done” ahead of Saturday’s second Test against the Lions.

New Zealand 30

Peter O’Mahony’s elevation to the British & Irish Lions captaincy for Saturday’s first test against New Zealand is as much a signal of intent as the bestowal of a coveted title on a born leader.

From day one of his tenure as the head coach of the 2017 British and Irish Lions, Warren Gatland has preached the importance of a power-packed set of replacements to come into the game and either close out a victory or reel in a deficit.

Because of the week that’s in it, it seems a justifiable exercise to consider how those great managers of image, expectation, and their supporters — New Zealand’s All Blacks — have come to be all-conquering and all but unassailable, to see if their culture, their way of realising their ambitions offer any lessons for our new Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.