A giddy thought but Farrell's Ireland are nowhere near their ceiling

JOYS IN GREEN: Jack Conan celebrates the 29-20 win over New Zealand at Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Pic: Brendan Moran, Sportsfile

Andy Farrell had served warning.

The Ireland head coach had met the All Blacks in battle enough times to know that the margins are razor-thin against the world’s best. Whether claiming every point possible or nailing every defensive set, the mantra remained the same.

“If you lose any moment against the Kiwis you get burned,” he said.

Ireland felt the lick of the flames just after the half-hour when Ethan Blackadder exploded through a gap in the Irish rearguard via a lineout. It was no more than a yard but, in a game of suffocating inches, that may as well have been the freedom of Dublin.

Blackadder was left with a simple pass off his left to the supporting Codie Taylor and Jordie Barrett’s conversion left the visitors 10-5 to the good. It was difficult not to fret that Ireland’s opportunity had already come and gone over the previous eight minutes or so.

Time and again in this game Johnny Sexton spurned three points for a kick to the corner. Just like Chicago. Time and again Ireland clawed and pumped their way to the Kiwi try line. Tadhg Furlong even got over it to touch down on the half-hour but all to no avail.

Not at all like Chicago.

The repeated visits to the visiting 22 in the time preceding that Taylor try were undone by penalties conceded, turnovers, spilled balls, a botched lineout. You name it they tried it. Something always got in the way. Worrying.

To be fair, that ‘thing’ was mostly a Kiwi body. If they summoned some dark arts to keep their line intact for such long stretches after that early James Lowe breakthrough then it was up to the officials to rein them in. Fact is, the ABs survived.

There was a moment after their first-half breakaway try when the very air seemed to have been sucked out of the stadium and that fear was heightened when Joe Moody sent Josh van der Flier back in the tackle on the halfway line shortly after.

It clearly wasn’t the first time all afternoon that an Irish player had failed to dominate a collision with ball in hand but it sure felt like it. Ireland had dominated possession and territory, played some brilliant rugby, but been singed by the moments that mattered most.

The hope was that the conflagration wouldn’t spread into the second-half.

That they wouldn’t look back at the concession of that first penalty to Jordie Barrett and dwell on the fact that this too came from their own failure to collect a restart. Or rue their inability to capitalise more while Taylor had spent ten minutes in the bin.

The beauty of this Irish performance was that some big moments continued to go against them. This was by no means perfect but they stuck at it with an indomitable will and a stubborn refusal to let it go the way of the ‘Ryan Crotty game’ in 2013.

They deserved to win this. They earned this. But they still had to win it.

Nothing became them like their response on the restart. Two tries inside the next dozen minutes. The ability to shake off another lightning strike, this time from Will Jordan. And the composure and class to close it out even as the game went a little bit helter skelter.

That they closed it out was down in so small part to the way they finally managed to nail those big moments when it ultimately mattered most. These snapshots came in their defence and in their defiance.

Lowe had been dropped for the last Six Nations game against England back in March, his offensive class offset to too great an extent by a defensive brittleness. His tackle on Sevu Reece, and the ability to prevent the offload as the Kiwis broke, likely saved the game.

Well, that and Peter O’Mahony’s turnover.

Even then danger threatened. There was still over a minute to go when New Zealand collected the ball on their own 22 and went about saving the game. They had done it here eight years ago when their progress up the field had been both interminable and terrible.

Not this time. This time they were stopped dead from the off when Tadhg Beirne got his mitts around the ball in a ruck. Joey Carbery’s last kick was as close to a gimme as you can get at this level. It was over. Ireland had been burned but ultimately survived.

Not only that, but thrived with it.

Strip it all down to the bare bones, as Farrell & Co. will do in the debrief, and this is a game that they could and maybe should have won by more and with a greater degree of comfort, if such a thing is possible against the All Blacks.

It’s a giddy thought. A third win in five years against the game’s best and still plenty of ‘work ons’ to go with it.