Ian Foster: Ireland will feel like this is their best chance to win a World Cup

BRAINS TRUST: New Zealand coach Joe Schmidt, (right) alongside New Zealand head coach Ian Foster. Pic: David Davies/PA Wire

The mind games have started. Ian Foster, whose New Zealand side face Ireland in the World Cup quarters next week, has done the honours by declaring that if ever there was a time for their next opponent to go the whole hog and claim the Webb Ellis then this should be it.

It’s a fascinating dynamic at play this next week. The All Blacks went undefeated in this head-to-head for 111 years, until Ireland’s first win in Chicago in 2016. The count since stands at five to three in the Six Nations’ team’s favour. Everything changed, utterly.

The last two meetings were Irish victories that secured for them a first ever series win in New Zealand itself so Foster, who claimed he had no interest in favourites and underdogs tags, was more than willing to turn the spotlight on the world’s number ones.

“They've got a group of players, this is probably their moment,” said the head coach. “If they're ever going to win a World Cup, they will probably feel like it's now.” 

The three-time world champions lost their tournament opener to France and suffered a record loss to South Africa in their last warm-up match and there remains some doubt as to just how good or otherwise they are right now.

A fine run of form after those defeats to Ireland last summer was put together on the back of two admittedly impressive wins against the Springboks but the travails of Australia and Argentina here in France leaves room for conjecture.

Hammering Namibia, Uruguay, and Italy in recent weeks tells us little enough too.

What they do have now is a potentially invaluable source of information as to how Ireland work and think in the form of attack coach Joe Schmidt, a man who spent so long spearheading the successes of both Leinster and Ireland before moving home.

Renowned for his attention to detail, it is inconceivable that Schmidt will not have something up his sleeve against players and coaches with whom he worked while based in Dublin.

“His mindset is, as is mine, about what we do well and making sure we nail that,” said Foster. “It's not so much a matter of micro-analysing them to the tenth degree that we get hung up and dampen our own game a little bit.

“He knows the Irish well but that's information that we've been tapping in to the last 12 months, and getting his nous in and refining how we play.” 

This is the thing with Test rugby maybe. So much time, effort, and technology goes into dissecting players and teams that there are very few secrets or twists in the game itself. Even Scotland, pulverised by Ireland, say they didn’t witness anything new.

It was just that Ireland did what they always do so well.

The All Blacks will have monitored the Six Nations champions closely, moreso since that loss to France and Ireland’s defeat of South Africa, in that those two results started these two on this collision course in the last eight.

That scrutiny will only intensify after Saturday night’s Pool B finale.

“There's a difference between your scouting planning and your actual planning when you know you're playing them. When you know you're playing them 100 per cent you are looking at their trends the last two or three weeks and pulling all that apart and trying to see how it fits with what we knew earlier.

“Look, we know them pretty well and they know us pretty well and there's no doubt that both teams will try and surprise around the edges, but the game's going to be about a discipline defensively. It's going to be about intensity at the breakdown and body height. And winning corners and stuff like that.

“We've got a pretty clear idea about the strengths they bring but seeing them play live helped confirm some of those things. Basically, it's just a layer of the painting that you add on as you watch more and more games as the year goes on.” 

The prize at stake is enormous.

A semi-final against Wales or Argentina, two teams that are eminently beatable at this tournament, is the main carrot. For Ireland there is the additional sweetener of equalling a world record run of 18 wins in a row and one shared for now by England and New Zealand.

Enter Foster again.

“It does get harder, it's something on your shoulders and it's like everything, you become a target, you can sometimes believe in the past and believe because it worked yesterday it's going to work tomorrow.” 

Beauden Barrett brought up the subject of revenge last week, days before Ireland had even accounted for Scotland. It is a theme that will run through the build-up like a stick of rock. Some will bite, others will resist the temptation.

"Every player has got different key motivating points and sometimes you don't have to change that,” was Foster’s take on that. “It's okay for some people to take losses more personal than others.

"There is no doubt that they believed when they came to New Zealand, they said it at the time, that they took something from us and it was a massive achievement for them to win on New Zealand soil. Which it was. But there's been a lot of water go under the bridge since then.”