Milestones and millstones
Richie McCaw and Mils Muliaina will become the most capped All Blacks of all time when they play their 93rd Tests, if fly-half Dan Carter scores 21 points at the Aviva Stadium he can surpass England’s Jonny Wilkinson as the all-time record points scorer and Graham Henry can win the 100th Test in his coaching career.
Alas, that milestone for Henry will mean another millstone around Irish necks. Defeat means a 24th consecutive failure to beat the All Blacks since 1905 and there have been few signs this autumn to suggest we should expect anything else.
Following defeat to South Africa and a far from inspirational win over Samoa, the bookmakers don’t give Ireland a hope and nor do their punters with very little money coming in for Declan Kidney’s side against the best team in the world.
And yet, Kidney, his coaches and players believe a return to form is imminent. That all the individual errors and the malfunctioning lineout that were punished by a below-par South African side and the inefficient scrummaging and lack of conviction that tainted the long-awaited victory over Samoa can be eradicated come kick-off time.
“I’ve got to say, I think training this week has been infinitely better than what we’ve trained for the past two weeks,” Kidney’s assistant coach Alan Gaffney said yesterday, echoing the statements of many players this week. “The weather has been better, which has no doubt helped. There has been a lot of confidence and the amount of ball down has been very slight. It’s hardly been there. There has been a lot of pace on it and very accurate.
“If we can transfer that from the training pitch on to the pitch tomorrow, we’ll be very happy about that.”
That’s a big ‘if’, never mind against the All Blacks, who will ruthlessly punish any errors, be they in handling, set-piece or tactical.
“We weren’t accurate against South Africa and we understand that, despite the conditions,” Gaffney continued.
“We want to go out and be playing an attacking brand of rugby, as do the New Zealanders obviously. We need to go out and attack and play that style. That’s the brand that Declan and the coaches have agreed we’ll play.
“I think everyone, including the players, are totally behind that. If we’re able to go and do that, and the weather stays like this, as we understand it will, then there’s no reason we can’t do it.”
Ireland have hinted at a return to the form that brought the 2009 Grand Slam but only in glimpses and have had New Zealand on the rack in equal measure over the past few meetings. But doing it for the full 80 minutes will be another challenge for a team that by Kidney’s admission has not been firing on all cylinders.
“You just encourage them to go after it for the 80 minutes,” the coach said. “You don’t want to turn it into a soccer match and let them score a few, and then we’ll see how many we score. You just need to play for 80 minutes.
“When you’re playing the best team in the world in any sport, that’s what you have to do. It’s the ultimate test. They’re on a high at the moment, they’re motoring really well. They have a few things under their belt with Richie and Mils, it’s a record cap for them. They are going into the stats and have something to play for in every single match. I’m sure they’ll be trying to do that, but that’s their business.”
There are further glimmers of hope for Ireland. The late withdrawal of Brad Thorn allied to the long-term absence of Ali Williams leaves the All Blacks with a weakened second row of Tom Donnelly and Andrew Boric while Hikawera Elliott will win just his second cap at hooker with Kevin Mealamu serving a suspension. And even with Mealamu, the New Zealand front row came under fierce pressure from England’s at Twickenham two weeks ago when the English had the put in. England also had Leicester’s young prop Dan Cole in the front row, it should be noted. Yet both the lineout, against South Africa, and the front row, against Samoa, were Ireland’s chief areas of concern and a return to form for both set-piece areas is crucial if the Irish are to get any platform to play the sort of game Kidney wants to see them deploy.
NEW ZEALAND’S captain fantastic Richie McCaw, at least for public consumption, is certainly ignoring current form and warning his players to expect an Irish team on top of its game. He has also not forgotten the summer Test in New Plymouth, when Kidney’s tourists recovered from the red card to Jamie Heaslip and yellow for Ronan O’Gara that precipitated a first-half shellacking at the Yarrow Stadium and ran in four tries against the All Blacks.
“If we don’t turn up and play properly anything could happen. We’ve seen a lot of clips that when they get good front-foot ball they’ve a lot of players that can put good teams under pressure so that’s the way we look at it.”
So what will Kidney be looking for from tonight’s game, apart from the obvious? Having returned to the bones of his team that started against the Springboks, one can assume that this is the XV which he hopes to start in next autumn’s World Cup, save for the absent Tomás O’Leary at scrum-half and Paul O’Connell at lock.
The coach will want to see how they stand up to the best team in the world. “We need to find out a few things,” Kidney said this week. He was referring to his chosen half-back combination of Jonathan Sexton and Eoin Reddan but the statement applies to this group of players as a whole. >
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