Soldier Field will always be part of Irish rugby folklore, with Ireland’s win over New Zealand at the Chicago venue back in 2016 among the nation’s most famous successes on a rugby pitch.

Last night’s fixture at the same stadium will live less fondly in the memory, with Andy Farrell’s men producing a rather tepid performance en route to a 26-13 loss to the All Blacks.

While the rugby on the pitch in this game was less than inspiring from an Irish point of view, there have also been some complaints about the general organisation of the fixture away from the field of play.

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 Jackman Highlights Failings Of Venue During Ireland Vs New Zealand

Considering that Soldier Field is not a regular rugby venue, it was no surprise to see that last night’s game felt a little bit out of place in the stadium. In saying that, there were a number of shortcomings that many have since deemed unacceptable for top tier test match.

The pitch itself was in fairly poor condition, while the big screens in the ground were also out of use. As well as that, the general production value for the on-screen product was well short of the standard expected.

Writing in the Irish Independent, Bernard Jackman summed up what he felt were some serious issue around the hosting of this Ireland vs New Zealand fixture in Chicago.

There are certain things that should be non negotiable around a big-game production and they were sadly absent last night…

I was working in commentary with Sky Sports New Zealand and within five minutes it was clear that the camera operators had very little understanding of the game and some of the angles we were given or what was been shown was very poor.

The fact that the big screen wasn’t working for the Tadhg Beirne red card incident was a disaster…

The stadium announcer and the DJ were poor and a lot of the fans I met afterwards felt very underwhelmed.

With the 2031 Rugby World Cup set to take place in the United States, it will be hoped that issues such as the ones mentioned above will be ironed out before the sport’s showpiece event makes its way across the Atlantic.

Considering the effort that many Ireland and New Zealand fans made in order to get to last night’s game, you can understand why many of them were underwhelmed with the product on display.

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