Ireland beating New Zealand is the stuff of dreams
Even when Simon Zebo extended Ireland’s 17 point half-time lead to 22 with a superb try out wide early in a pulsating second-half, one wondered would it be enough.
To beat New Zealand you not only have to ask different questions of them but you must take them out of their comfort zone.
That is exactly what Joe Schmidt’s side did on a historic day at Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears.
How typical of the New Zealand press that, on the final whistle, one of their number sitting adjacent to me should venture aloud, who is that No 5 Devin Toner? It’s always the same.
Something similar happened at a press conference during the week when another Kiwi journalist thought Ireland’s loose head prop Jack McGrath was Ireland captain Rory Best.
Suffice to say, they know this Irish team a little bit better now. To be fair, New Zealand coach Steve Hansen and captain Kieran Reid couldn’t have been more gracious in defeat and had no difficulty paying this Irish side the credit they thoroughly deserved.
How fitting in a week that saw the Windy City go wild when the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years Ireland should bury an 111-year hoodoo by finally conquering the All Blacks.
Perhaps there was even a little bit of divine inspiration when the Irish players faced down the special Kapa o Panga version of the New Zealand Haka in a figure-of-eight formation, with the four Munster players placed strategically in centre position, in memory of the late Anthony Foley.
How fitting was that?
In the build up to this contest, I speculated that to have any chance of winning, Ireland needed to be ahead on the 50 minute mark when Steve Hansen usually looks to unleash his bench to wreak havoc.
Nobody had managed that feat in the 10 test matches New Zealand had played to date this year.
In those circumstances, to be 22 points ahead at that point was the stuff of dreams.
It says everything about the quality and character of this New Zealand side that, even in adversity with the injuries mounting, they still managed to reduce that margin to four with 16 minutes left.
That Ireland managed to absorb that pressure and respond in the manner they did to fight back and extend the lead to the final winning margin of 11 points makes the win even more noteworthy.
For the nine Irish players still on board last Saturday, the memory of that harrowing, last gasp, defeat to the same opposition three years ago must have played on their minds but, for a variety of reasons, that experience was not going to be replicated on his occasion.
Firstly the continual pressure applied without the ball by Ireland in defence forced New Zealand into making the type of handling errors they had managed to eradicate from their game.
A number of those uncharacteristic errors can be attributed to some of those bench players who are used to being introduced into action when New Zealand are ahead and not exposed to the type of unyielding pressure they experienced on Saturday.
On this occasion they were chasing the game and due perhaps to the stop-start nature of the opening half - incredibly it took 57 minutes to complete - the Irish players were able to maintain their intensity levels when the game entered that crucial final period when the All Blacks normally go on the rampage.
That effort was exemplified when the outstanding Conor Murray - what a game he had - chased down Julien Savea in New Zealand’s in-goal area to force the attacking five metre scrum that yielded the match-clinching try from the equally effective Robbie Henshaw. After that there was simply no way back, even for the All Blacks.
The fact New Zealand started the game without their three first choice locks in their squad presented Ireland with the opportunity to attack their line out, something they did with spectacular success in that opening half.
Even this exceptional New Zealand side struggle to play without the ball and with the Irish front five all playing out of their skins that is exactly what happened with Ireland enjoying 67% of both possession and territory in a pulsating first half.
Twenty eight different Irish teams over that 111 year stretch attempted to down New Zealand colours without success which makes debutant Joey Carbery’s achievement even more incredible.
When Johnny Sexton was forced to leave the field due to injury with 20 minutes remaining it seemed to be asking too much of the young man who only turned 21 this week - what a birthday milestone - to close out this one.
To his credit, with New Zealand having to position back rower Ardie Savea out of position on the wing for the last 10 minutes due to a series of injuries across their back line, Carbery had the confidence and tactical nous to expose that potential deficiency.
The challenge when facing this New Zealand side is, once you match or expose them in one area, they are very good at recalibrating on the hoof and attacking you in another. They very nearly pulled that off again on this occasion by shoring up their line out with the introduction of another debutant in second row Scott Barrett, Beauden’s younger brother. He made a massive contribution.
Andrew Trimble delivered some bone crunching hits in defence, Rob Kearney produced a master class and Simon Zebo was composure personified. Henshaw and Payne were excellent together in midfield while Sexton and Murray bossed the show.
Much of New Zealand’s dominance in their world record, 18-game, winning streak can be traced to the dominance of their back row but on this occasion they were outplayed by the bullocking CJ Stander, Jamie Heaslip, Jordi Murphy before his horrible knee injury and his replacement Josh van der Flier.
Couple that with the sustained effort of a magnificent front five, supplemented even further by those introduced off the bench, and you begin to understand just how Ireland finally managed to put New Zealand away.
Over the last five months Ireland have managed to beat South Africa and the All Blacks on the road, despite being short a number of front line players.
If strength in depth is the key towards success on the biggest stage of all, the World Cup, then the cycle heading towards Japan in three years time could not have started better.
With Joe Schmidt also committed to that cause, this group just took another giant step forward.
The challenge now is to keep that momentum moving in the right direction over the next three weeks.
