It keeps coming back to intensity
There is such a thing as the Lansdowne roar.
On Saturday it returned, hopefully to stay.
The fear of humiliation can make you do things you mightn’t otherwise contemplate. If nothing else it helps to concentrate the mind. With the almost hypnotic power of the All Blacks being shoved down the throats of the Irish players all week, it was inevitable that it would elicit a positive reaction.
Ireland were simply unrecognisable from the displays against Samoa and South Africa, which, under the circumstances was not unexpected. They delivered in all the key areas in terms of competing at the breakdown, having a clear vision of how they wanted to play, a structure and organisation in defence. They also lit that creative spark that had been dormant for too long.
The net result was an Ireland performance far superior in quality to anything seen in the Grand Slam season of 2009. On that occasion, performing very well was sufficient to succeed. Against this New Zealand side, playing magnificently was merely not enough. That is why they are the number one ranked team in the game.
As a measure of Ireland’s current standing it was very instructive. Ireland played as well as I have seen for a long, long time. Magnificent in defence, inspirational at times in attack, competent in the set piece and strong in the contact area – they still lost by 20 points. That is a tribute to how good this New Zealand side is and certainly not a criticism of Ireland. The most you can ask of any side is to play to the maximum of their ability and in that respect, Ireland delivered in spades. What needs to happen now is that they take this game as a launch-pad and drive on from here. The thing that separates New Zealand from the rest is that their launch-pad is much higher than everyone else’s.
Why is that? I believe it comes back to intensity. Yes, Ireland had it on Saturday, inspired in some respects by the quality of the opposition and the fear of a hammering. For New Zealand, it’s an innate part of their make-up. By playing with intensity I mean a combination of delivering power, pace, strength, ferocity and ruthlessness.
AFTER the game Graham Henry referred to the fact that Ireland were more physical than his side. Over the eighty minutes he was right but at what price? The Ireland dressing room resembled a scene from MASH, with a casualty count not witnessed since the blood-drenched scenes after the battle of Pretoria against South Africa in 1998.
With Argentina looming Sunday, Ireland report six serious collision injuries. Across the corridor New Zealand had some minor bumps and bruises. Why? Because they play like that all the time while teams like Ireland can only play at that peak of intensity intermittently. The Tri-Nations, where the top three physically pummel each other continuously over a period of three months, helps in that respect. In addition the thing that defines this particular band of All Blacks is a ruthless streak that smells any potential weakness. We saw it in Johannesburg last August when trailing South Africa with two minutes to go, they turned a 22-17 defeat into a resounding 22-29 victory with the Springboks out on their feet.
On Saturday, recognising that Luke Fitzgerald had taken a serious knock, they flooded his channel with bodies on four separate occasions in the build-up to Kieran Reid’s first try.
Having thrown everything at Ireland in an opening half, when they enjoyed 70% of possession but ran into a brick wall in the shape of that superb defensive effort, they never panicked. Not even after Stephen Ferris produced the opening try of they game to put Ireland into the lead. What they did was dominate those key championship minutes either side of half-time. New Zealand scored 21 unanswered points between the 39th and 49th minute. That didn’t happen by accident.
The thing that fascinated me most with the New Zealand attack was the ease and frequency with which they manufactured overlaps. Had Ireland’s defensive organisation been any less disciplined, there could have been an avalanche of tries. As it was, all four All Black tries came from forwards.
On this occasion, there were many plusses for Ireland in defeat. Chief amongst those was confirmation they can deliver a ball in hand game and create line breaks. They also kicked less, offering New Zealand only six lineouts in the entire game. If only they could have managed that against the highly efficient Springbok line-out.
In addition we were offered a glimpse of the future with Ireland competing for the majority of the second half with three players under 24 in the front five in Cian Healy, who battled manfully all day, Sean Cronin who also did extremely well when introduced for the injured Rory Best and Devin Toner. Saturday’s experience will stand to them.
The physical battle took its toll with Ireland having to make 80 tackles to New Zealand’s 25 in the opening half alone. That has acumulative effect. Overall there was much to be proud of in this Ireland performance and much to be gleaned for the battles that lie ahead. In the circumstances the music that blared from the stadium speakers after the game could even have offered a coded message to the Irish players as they boarded the team bus – Don’t stop believing.
