Tainton: Accuracy will be key

Accuracy will be key if Ireland are to create history by beating New Zealand for the first time in history in Auckland this Saturday.

That’s according to Ireland’s assistant coach Mark Tainton, who will be looking for considerable improvement on his team’s RBS Six Nations form.

Taking encouragement from Leinster’s march to another Heineken Cup crown, Ulster’s emergence to contest the final and even Munster’s form in the pool stages of an ultimately disappointing European campaign, Tainton isn’t worried about the quality of player available. But he stressed the importance of the word accuracy more than once as he assessed Ireland’s chances.

“We do have a strategy (of how we hope we can beat them) but we have to implement it and be very accurate in what we’re doing. The French were the last team to go win a match on New Zealand soil and we know we have things to improve on from the Six Nations. Hopefully we can carry on playing our style of rugby, but (we need to be) keeping the ball for longer periods,” he said.

Tainton dismisses the theory that a new look All Black side might be vulnerable in the opening Test at Eden Park. He sees it differently: “New Zealand are world champions, they’re playing for the first time since the World Cup and they will want to go out and put on some display. No matter what players New Zealand bring in, they’re going to perform; it’s going to be a massive challenge.

“The challenge always against New Zealand is that you’re playing against power and pace, playing against a multi-phased game.

“They keep the ball very well, they go into contact on their conditions and they’re happy to play a patient game and try to create a mismatch.

“We just have to understand when we’re defending that we don’t create mismatches for them, that when they do decide to strike that we have numbers in the correct positions and the correct players in those positions to defend (vigorously) against them.”