Being in Ireland in November, asking to be taken back to Marseille should be a relatively normal remark. It’s a warm coastal town in the south of France, what’s not to love? However, despite what many of us predicted; it is what Andy Farrell and Ireland will be saying to themselves this weekend.
New Zealand not only ended Ireland’s 19 game unbeaten run on home soil, but they thoroughly outplayed the home side in a rude awakening. It’s far removed from Ireland’s opening game in 2024 when they looked like world beaters against Les Bleus.
So after a miserable night in rainy Dublin, where did it all go wrong for Ireland? As always it is rarely one thing, but sometimes the stat line tells a full story:
Ireland:
13 penalties conceded
30 missed tackles
21 handling errors
11 turnovers conceded
5 rucks lost
3 lineouts lost
1 scrum lost
0 bench impactThat ain’t gonna get it done, especially not against the All Blacks.
— Cian Tracey (@CianTracey1) November 8, 2024
Power
The first issue for me was the power game. Ireland selected a three lock pack (McCarthy, Ryan, Beirne) knowing they needed to negate the loss of Furlong and impact of New Zealand’s forwards. However, it was not to be. Instead Ireland came up small, fumbling possession away and making zero impact in collisions. New Zealand missed just 14 tackles across the 80 minutes, less than half of what Ireland did, in large part due to their ability to smother Ireland’s most abrasive ball carriers.
When Ireland reach top stride, it is their ability to frankly run over the top of their opponent that helps secure the quick ruck ball that fans have become accustomed to. Although this was a relatively quick night at breakdown time (70% of rucks under 3 seconds), the All Blacks were happy to let Ireland play from the base of the ruck, and instead got up off their feet to get back into the defensive line, where they would make a far greater impact.
Set-Piece
Like Ireland’s inevitable size disadvantage, we could have predicted issues at both the scrum and lineout. A 70% return from Kelleher and Herring’s combined 10 throws is far below test standard, and not only that, the ball Ireland did secure barely gave them a platform to launch from.
The scrum was another worry all year and showed its ugly face, with Tamaiti Williams and Tyrel Lomax putting the Irish front row under serious pressure. Referee Nic Berry allowed a contest for most of the game, but Ireland struggled to gather momentum and sometimes even were driven backwards. Dan Sheehan and Tadhg Furlong were missed in these areas.
Discipline
In the 2024 Guinness Six Nations, Ireland conceded the most penalties of any team. However, most of those were from winning positions. That trend continued on Friday night where Ireland conceded 13 penalties, again more than double of their opponents. That gave New Zealand a massive boost not only psychologically, but also in territory, allowing the visitors to control how the game was played and where.
There is nothing more energy sapping in rugby than losing yards due to your own errors. To do so against a team of New Zealand’s quality is somewhat inexcusable, but speaks to the pressure Ireland were under. Still, as it is a developing trend, it will need to be ironed out across the next three games.
Bench Impact
In a nip and tuck game like what we saw across the opening hour, the final quarter was likely to be decided by the impact of the respective benches. Ireland deployed almost 500 test caps of experience from the reserves, compared to just 220 for the All Blacks. This is usually the position from which Ireland kick on but unfortunately it was the fresher and more powerful Kiwis who won this exchange and wrestled back control of the game.
It could be argued that Andy Farrell and his coaching staff just got it wrong with the timing and use of the substitutions. As New Zealand drew level, Ireland tried to unleash a bomb squad of sorts, with Tom O’Toole, Rob Herring, Iain Henderson and Ciarán Frawley all entering play. However, it was a series of unfortunate events from O’Toole’s HIA withdrawal two minutes later, to Henderson and Frawley’s costly errors.
Ultimately this was an Ireland bench designed to step on the throat of their opponent and see the result out from there, but instead it had the opposite effect as the All Blacks won that battle 11-0 to see out a deserved win on Dublin soil.
Ireland head into next Friday’s clash with Argentina on a low ebb now, and although there will be calls for changes; Andy Farrell is likely to stick to form and back the tried and trusted. However, like the first test in South Africa from the summer, this was a shock result and performance from Ireland, as they failed to get out of first gear and were outmatched from 1-23.
Maybe it will be the type of defeat that spurs change and evolution of the squad, but it more so feels like the result of a series of poor performances across 2024, culminating in an unconvincing outing that never lived up to the billing.
