Rob Kearney: 'We still have to improve on a lot of areas if we want to be in with a chance'
Dan Sheehan with Tadhg Furlong, left, and Tom O'Toole during squad training. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Rob Kearney leaps on the question like it’s a loose ball before the last words are out. He’s already heard enough to take a stab at where it’s going. All he needed to pounce was mention of Ireland, New Zealand tour and 2012.
“You don’t have to remind me of 2012. The 60-0, was it?” No. That's not what we had in mind.
“Christchurch the week before. Dan Carter with the second drop goal and Nigel Owens did us at the scrum ten minutes before that.”
Closer, but no again. What we were aiming for was the first of those three games, when Ireland got stuffed 42-10 at the same Eden Park ‘fortress’ where the same countries will meet in the Nations Championship this Saturday.
Kearney can recall Julian Savea scoring a hat-trick on debut, but he needed reminding that the game had taken place at a ground where the All Blacks haven’t lost in the professional era. That’s a stretch going all the way back to 1994.
“When I think of Eden Park the match that actually comes back to me is [beating] Australia [there] in the 2011 World Cup. I didn’t actually know that that first Test was in Eden Park until you said it.
“I guess we have to remember that up until 2016 the focus was always on beating the All Blacks as opposed to beating them in a place like Eden Park. Everything that has gone on there up to now has attached a bit more history and prestige to Eden Park.”
It’s a streak that merits context.
The All Blacks don’t play all their home games at the same ground, like Ireland at the Aviva, or England in Twickenham. Theirs is a travelling circus around the two islands but they’ve still turned out and prevailed 52 times since losing to France 32 years ago.
They have been judicious with their hosting rights in Auckland. Kearney, for instance, wondered aloud how many times they’ve chosen to play South Africa there. The answer? Only five times in the last 29 Springbok visits to the country.
That, he said, could act as added incentive to Ireland. Andy Farrell has already described his side as “fortunate” to be the side chosen to turn out there with France catered for at a reopened Christchurch stadium and Italy beaten in Wellington.
Ireland will walk out four years after losing heavily the first of an ultimately successful three-match tour to New Zealand, and they have been caught cold by the Kiwis in the last two meetings, one in Chicago and the other in Dublin.
Both of those came at the start of a Test window too. This time it's different. Australia were edged in Sydney a fortnight ago before a rotated Irish team scrambled past Japan in Newcastle a week ago. They should be primed now.
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“Ah yeah. It’s far more beneficial to be playing them the third week of the tour as opposed to the first week. Now, in saying that, they will still have to improve on an awful lot of areas from what we have seen the last few weeks if they want to be in with a chance.
“I just feel that… not that there is something very different about this team, but I do believe that we will see the very best of them this week than we have over the last few weeks and certainly towards the end of the Six Nations.”
Kearney has been noticeably more cautious in his judgement on where this Ireland team is since the end of a Six Nations which the team almost won after a disastrous opening night against the French in Paris.
What he sees still is a squad in the midst of a transitional period, which he is fine with as long as that doesn’t push through into the next calendar year and the fast approaching World Cup in Australia.
The hight point of 2026 for Ireland to date was undoubtedly a blistering defeat of England in London and, if the struggles suffered by Steve Borthwick’s team since have devalued the value of that, then it still stands as a template.
“Yeah, it wasn’t a great English performance and it was probably tarnished more by their level of performances following that, but we blew them away on the day.
“Everything about how we played that day was really good and that level of performance against England will absolutely be good enough to be in the hunt on Saturday because we were just so good across the board.
“It was more just the hunger, desire and intent with our carries. It looked like a different sort of team. So we do know that they have that kind of capability and they probably haven’t just been as consistent showing it as we have come to expect from the team.”
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