Reasons for Ireland to be cheerful ahead of All Blacks blockbuster (...and fearful)

LEADERS OF THE PACK: Head coach Andy Farrell and Jonathan Sexton. Pic: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Reasons to be cheerful

What more do we need? Ireland are chasing a world-record equalling 18th win in a row. They have lost just twice in their last 31 games and already completed very different tasks against the Springboks and Scotland at this World Cup.

The first 50 minutes against the Scots brought us an Irish team playing some of its most incisive rugby since the tour to New Zealand 15 months before and the feeling is that the team has timed its run pretty damn well.

Are they peaking? It seems that way and, while the absences of James Ryan and Robbie Henshaw are unfortunate, the injury list is noticeably light this deep into the tournament. This is as good as it’s gets entering the knockout stages.

Iain Henderson almost succeeded in puncturing the pressure around this game during the week when he pointed out that this Ireland team has been ticking off ‘big’ wins for some time.

ROADSHOW: Ed Ryan from Cashel with his campervan in the famed Montmartre district of Paris ahead of Saturday's game. Ed spent two days driving the van from Tipperary and said it's a long way... 

He’s right. Remember when the perception was of an Ireland team that couldn’t do it against the game’s mightiest beasts? France were beaten in the spring and South Africa have been taken down twice in the last year.

It’s not just that Ireland know how to win, it’s the fact they’ve forgotten how to lose. The manner in which they held in against the Springboks and then thwarted a good ten minutes of Scottish pressure shows that this team can win ugly too.

Reasons to be fearful

Doubts persist about the level these All Blacks are at after convincing losses to South Africa and France but they are immeasurably better than the side that lost that summer series to Ireland in home soil last year.

Joe Schmidt and Jason Ryan have worked on various facets of their game since joining the coaching staff and the team has been pulled asunder and built back up. Only eight of those who started the third Test against sore land in 2022 do so here.

Schmidt’s presence has been a talking point all week and we can be sure that the former Ireland manager has drummed up specific plays and ploys for an opponent all but confirmed when Andy Farrell’s side beat the Boks.

The workloads up to now have to be a factor. Ireland have made fitness and skills, each under fatigue, a central plank in everything they do and they will need to see the benefit of all that work against the Kiwis.

WE'LL ATE 'EM: Waterford's Ellen Curran tucks into a morning baguette. Pic: Dan Sheridan, Inpho

Farrell has asked more of more of his frontline players than Ian Foster, Fabien Galthié or the Rassie Erasmus/Jacques Nienaber think tank. Were there signs of tiredness in that last half-hour against the Scots? Or was it just a natural case of job done at the time?

These things can be viewed either way. Ireland clearly have momentum after their more testing assignments in Pool B and Andrew Porter has insisted he feels so god that it’s like the tournament is only starting.