Tighter than a tuba band in a French lift, until the All Blacks broke free from Ireland

TIGHT CONTEST: The Ireland team face down the New Zealand Haka. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

It was Peter O’Mahony who stood furthest forward in Ireland’s line as they faced up to the haka just before 8.10pm on Friday night.

And it was the Munster man who led the slow shuffle forward in answer to the traditional Kiwi challenge before rubbing his hands together in raw anticipation at the finish.

O’Mahony wasn’t even starting. Willie Anderson must have approved.

Let’s start here with a grenade that might not sit well in parts. This Ireland team should be beating this New Zealand at this point in time and at this venue.

That should go without saying for the team ranked number one in the world, playing at home, and against a (very dangerous) side still very much in transition.

Should?

It’s a loaded word and nothing about that first 111 years without a win against these visitors would have let anyone approach this without the appropriate caution.

Only two of the last nine meetings – starting with Chicago – have been decided by a converted try or less, but this one had the feel of a tuba band in a French elevator from the off.

There was a claustrophobia about it. An angst and grit. This was supposed to be Friday Night Lights. Party time. Running rugby on a dry track. No. It drizzled.

There was scrum after scrum, botched lineouts and much ado but nothing in terms of razzle or dazzle as the Kiwis pushed and probed and Ireland scrambled for rhythm.

Ireland managed five attacks in the first-half. Five. And ‘attacks’ is doing some heavy lifting there. Two ended with knock-ons, a third with a Wallace Sititi turnover, another when the ball squirted out sideways from a ruck, and then the last when they finally got a groove going on and Jordie Barrett got the bin for a high shot on Garry Ringrose.

It was thin gruel for the Six Nations champions but if the best build their standards on defence then Ireland were up to the mark in that.

The middle third of that opening period was all New Zealand. That they were limited to just two more Damian McKenzie penalties, for a 9-3 lead, was a win in all but name for the hosts.

It was a close-run thing with successive Irish defenders catching galloping Kiwis from behind and sliding them to the ground on the wet surface just one sign of the strain.

Another came with three minutes to the break when referee Nic Berry warned Caelan Doris that the penalty count was unacceptable and that one more would mean yellow.

These were the margins: Barrett sent to the sideline for a hit that crept up a mite too high, Ireland a close shave from their own.

Through most of it there was some unseen magnetic force keeping them in each other’s orbit. Josh van der Flier’s try just after the break could have been a release from the contest’s grip.

Fists were pumping the air, on the field and in the stands, and again when Jamison Gibson-Park emptied Will Jordan in the All Black 22.

But then another turnover, or a knock-on to stem any home tide.

McKenzie’s fourth penalty left just a point in it with a half-hour to play. And as the minutes dragged on the memories of the World Cup resurfaced.

Not just of Ireland’s loss to New Zealand but of those last seven knockout games in France when five had been decided by six points or less.

This levelling out of standards in the Test game had been a talking point during the week and on the back of New Zealand’s arse-scraping win over England in London.

Then McKenzie’s fifth penalty attempt came back off a post and you wondered what George Ford was thinking after his own trials with the boot six days earlier.

If England were left with what ifs last week then Ireland were loaded down with them. The error count was the only thing about them in full stride in the second-half as McKenzie’s boot and yet another Will Jordan try against Ireland pushed New Zealand ten points ahead with just the ten minutes left.

A handsome lead in any end game, it was a gulf that a stuttering home team was never going to navigate. A first win for New Zealand, or any southern hemisphere side, in Dublin since 2016.

A first home defeat for Ireland in 20 matches. No need to go overboard on this but, still, a disappointment.