THE SERIES may be lost – but the ultimate one-off prize remains. None of this Irish squad will ever again have the opportunity to beat the All Blacks in New Zealand, so they can ill afford self-pity in the fall-out from the one that got away.
Ireland have other regrets and are not of a mind to complain too loudly about the scrum penalty which turned the endgame on its head – not least because they face the same lot next Saturday with their bon ami Romain Poite as chief arbiter.
“We can improve on kick off time,” was Declan Kidney’s starting point. “Kick off receipt, kick off attack. That will be a big lesson from the tour then too; the accuracy of the kicker on their side is impressive and us putting it on the mark then too. At home we are always inclined to look at scrum and lineout, but kick off has been a huge part in both first and second test. That’s why the tour is a good learning. We have a few younger to middle age test rugby players who will be all the stronger for that.”
Kidney’s emphasis on developing players was well rewarded in persisting with the 23-year-old Conor Murray for his eighth test start in what is still his rookie test year. “I was half mad I think for picking Conor for the first match of the World Cup, which was only seven or eight months ago, so he’s learning and he’s coming through. He’s now starting to learn to play the game rather than play the shape, and he took the first try. If you look at it, it was he who was signalling fellas to come around.
“Somebody came around and he had a half gap and had the courage to go for it. But it’s still a tight call .”
Murray attributed his more proactive role (and first test try) to Ireland’s quicker ball. “I think we fronted up big time at the breakdown, and it was a huge difference from last week, I found personally. The ball was coming back a lot quicker. Last week, because the ball was so slow, it looked as if we were just going from nine to 10, but when the ball’s that slow you can’t challenge around the rucks.
“I just had to back myself a bit more this week. They were on the back foot a bit and I could see a bit more space. There’s obviously positives to take out of that and bring into next week, but I’m still bitterly disappointed to come that close.”
“I thought we had it,” said a rueful Jonathan Sexton. “Even at the end I thought we were going to get another chance. We put everything into it and we probably made a couple of mistakes at key times, like straight after half time, to let in a soft try. We are very proud of our effort but it seems to be the same story,” he added, in reference to losing games late on.
His All Black counterpart, Dan Carter, has only kicked five drop goals in 87 tests and reckoned this was his first to win a match. “I don’t think I have in my career, so it’s very rewarding. It’s more relief than anything to get a win.
“Just being back and playing test match rugby in Christchurch for me personally, a born and bred Cantabrian – there was a great feeling, and it was a true test match tonight . . . There was definitely a few Irish supporters in the crowd making plenty of noise. It was good to see as well.”
“Ah, it was awesome,” said another Crusader, Israel Dagg. “It was good to be back in Christchurch – I think there was more Irish out there to be honest,” he joked.
On the first yellow card of his career, he said: “I didn’t mean it. I just jumped and hit him (Rob Kearney), which made it look bad and the ref had to make the call and he made the call and I just have to take it on the chin and move on next week. Luckily the boys got a win. Otherwise I probably would have got a spank.” A likeable cheeky chappy, he still looked the most relieved All Black of all.
