Going to a rugby match without a working portfolio might be viewed as a bit of a busman’s holiday but there is an important demarcation line, one that differentiates between a job and attending for social or family purposes. It frames how I watch a match.
A friend enquired as to whether I’d be at Ireland’s game against New Zealand and was taken aback by my answer. I am usually lucky enough to be commentating or a studio analyst, and the few times I have gone outside that scenario is to bring my kids to experience a game.
I still watch rugby with two eyes on what, why and how things happen on a field, where the space is, what the defensive shape is like and other in-game minutiae. So, when asked by my friend I told him my priority was to watch the game, not experience it, and that I would do so from home. That was the plan.
However, in the run-up to the game I was swept up by the build-up. The excitement and intensity surrounding the match got the better of me, and I opted to experience the match at the last moment, when a spare ticket materialised.
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Watching Rieko Ioane leading the haka, I was struck by how the group had rallied around a team-mate who had stood tall above the parapet in previous weeks with regard to his Johnny Sexton spat and then again in the aftermath, albeit this time with a childish social media post; the centre teetered on the brink of being more widely renowned for his post-match reactions than his performances on the pitch.
The contest was far from vintage. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that Ireland were trying to not lose rather than going out to win, as we have become accustomed to under Andy Farrell. New Zealand showed slightly more ambition with how they played and without doubt demonstrated a lot more accuracy.
Ireland will be extremely disappointed with the overall performance but particularly with the patterns in attack. A continuous stream of unforced errors and inaccuracy at rucks stifled any sort of momentum. There were only a handful of times that the home side managed to get into decent multiphase play across the 80 minutes.
New Zealand were a net contributor to Ireland’s issues at the breakdown with some impressive tackling and decision-making in choosing their moments to chase the turnover. Disrupting rucks is far from an exact science so getting a feel for what’s possible with the referee is crucial. New Zealand were impressive, Ireland struggled to adapt.
The upshot was that Ireland’s attacking game was knocked out of kilter. The home side were forced to kick off the back foot when unable to make much, or at times, any progress with ball-in-hand. Conversely most of the other component parts of their game, especially defence, were at a level required to win the match.
New Zealand’s discipline – just five penalties to the 13 coughed up by their hosts – ensured that they didn’t hand over cheap points. In contrast, Ireland handed outhalf Damian McKenzie seven penalty shots at goal and he landed six.
Ireland shouldn’t have been spooked by the occasion. It’s a settled, experienced team, 17 of the 23 took part in last year’s World Cup quarter-final defeat to the All Blacks. You could round that up to 18 if you include Cian Healy who would have been involved but for injury.
There is always a fine line to be straddled in ensuring that ‘settled’ doesn’t stray into being predictable. Farrell has largely managed to do that successfully during his tenure, a positive characteristic. There are changes coming, results will determine how quickly.
Ireland doesn’t have a huge rugby-playing population and there are weaknesses with the system in terms of the throughput of players, quality and quantity. Expecting players to peak on command without dips or setbacks in performance terms is naive.
It doesn’t matter who the coach is. Andy Farrell is rugby’s equivalent of a horse whisperer. Even the great Man City manager Pep Guardiola experiences the rough in results terms; he is currently enduring a four-match losing streak.
New Zealand are in a regeneration cycle under new head coach Scott Robertson. Only eight players from that World Cup win over Ireland were in action last Friday night. They have greater depth in quality, and this provides more latitude to reward form without compromising performance values.
Perhaps that was the difference between the two teams – fresh faces with a bit more of a point to prove, doing just enough to edge past Ireland.
New Zealand were much more dangerous with the ball in hand, with Ireland losing out in most of the key attacking stats: offloads NZ 10-4, line breaks 9-1, defenders beaten 30-14, while Ireland only carried the ball for 202 metres compared to the visitors’ 458 metres.
Some of the newer faces like Mark Tele’a, Caleb Clarke and Wallace Sititi were conspicuous contributors as in-form players. An outlier was Damian McKenzie, who had been dropped in favour of Beauden Barrett for the England match and only restored for last Friday’s match because the latter was unavailable following a head injury.
Robertson had initially favoured McKenzie as his first-choice outhalf but a dip in form changed that mindset. Ireland should have squeezed him but instead afforded the outhalf too much time and space and he punished them, looking every inch the player that Scott Robertson wanted him to be rather than the one dropped a week previously.
There are limitations to the Irish system, to our player profile, and I have written about this before that we should enjoy the success as and when it happens because we overperform massively on the international stage. This was another timely reminder. It comes with a lovely opportunity for redemption against a high-flying Argentina fresh from a well-rounded, powerful performance in victory over Italy.
Adversity has often brought the best out of Ireland and that is once again a challenge for the coaches and squad heading into Friday’s game.
They’re a proud, determined and talented group as they have shown numerous times in the past and will use the setback against New Zealand as a fuel source to drive the improvement required to beat Argentina.
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