Ireland shook off the shackles<\/a> of 111 years of misery against the All Blacks, Van der Flier, improbably, made the moment of history his own. There\u2019s been plenty more since, which brings more of that perspective \u2014 and appreciation for what that day meant in his grand scheme.<\/p>\n\u201cIt was an unbelievable experience. It was very surreal,\u201d Van der Flier reflected. \u201cEverything was new, even being in camp was new. [It was] my first time travelling abroad with Ireland, really.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo win the game over here it was an unbelievable buzz afterwards. It was all a bit of a blur, to be honest. I tried not to think too much of the significance of it, because I was incredibly nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n
It never showed. Sprung from the bench as an early replacement for the injured Jordi Murphy he racked up 12 tackles in less than an hour\u2019s trojan work as Joe Schmidt guided Ireland to a promised land.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing that stood out to me, when Joe went through the meetings earlier in the week, the Monday and Tuesday meetings, and we were talking through the game plan and looking at New Zealand, and I remember thinking: \u201cGosh, this game plan is so good, I don’t know how we’re going to lose\u2019. He had us very well up for it and we managed to perform. It was a very special day to remember.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The beauty of memories is there are always more to be made. Saturday\u2019s renewal offers opportunity. Van der Flier has added 70 caps to the three he left with last time. He\u2019s the most experienced back row in the panel which again went through their paces at SeatGeek Stadium on Tuesday. The last ten meetings between the sides have been evenly split, 5-5, with Van der Flier a constant in the contests.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve played them a good few times. I think Ardie Savea has played pretty much all of those as well and I played against him at under-20s as well. So, we always have a chat afterwards. It\u2019s funny how it’s worked out like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are always fierce Tests. The one thing I\u2019ve noticed\u2026particularly against New Zealand, you have to be particularly switched on in every way. You switch off for a small moment and they’re good enough players that they take those opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s definitely a monkey off the back\u2026you know you can do it. If you even have subconscious belief or subconscious thought that you might not be able to do it, you probably won\u2019t. Once you’ve done something before, especially the younger lads or anyone who’s seen Ireland having success against them, that becomes the expectation or what the goal is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Van der Flier referenced the raised expectations of the Farrell era. But the disruption caused by both coach and a huge cohort of his players being on Lions duty for most of the summer has tempered outside expectations this week. The 2022 World Player of the Year insists Ireland can cope with truncated preparations. As a non-Test tourist, he had the benefit of returning to action one week earlier than his fellow Lions.<\/p>\n
Unlikely to reach for mitigation anyway, Van der Flier pointed to Tadhg Beirne\u2019s tour de force for Munster at Croke Park two weeks ago as reason for the rest to believe they\u2019ll be plenty ready for what the All Blacks bring.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s been absolutely incredible this year, probably our best player on both sides of the ball,\u201d he added. \u201cHe was brilliant [against Leinster], at his best really, his breakdowns, steals, he was just good around the park. So yeah, I don’t think we can use that excuse if he’s playing that well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh van der Flier is back to soaking-it-all-up mode. It hasn\u2019t always been that way. At times in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54046,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-109730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-irish-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}