{"id":549130,"date":"2026-07-14T11:53:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/549130\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T11:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:53:16","slug":"irelands-new-kiwi-born-star-says-playing-all-blacks-would-be-a-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/549130\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland’s new Kiwi-born star says playing All Blacks would be a ‘dream’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s new star Sean Jansen has described potentially playing the All Blacks this weekend as a dream.<\/p>\n

The Connacht No 8 was player of the match on his debut as Ireland did enough to beat Japan 36-20<\/a> in Newcastle, Australia, to keep their 100% Nations Championship record.<\/p>\n

It was a lacklustre performance from the majority of Andy Farrell\u2019s side, but Jansen was one of the huge standouts, with his bulldozing carries and speed off the mark the bit of energy Ireland overall lacked on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sean Jansen making a break. Pic: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long journey for the 27-year-old, who hails originally from Dunedin, New Zealand, and after last weekend\u2019s performance, could well be called upon by Farrell once again for the 23 on Saturday when Ireland face the All Blacks at Eden Park, a stadium the 3-time World Champions haven\u2019t lost in since 1994.<\/p>\n

\u2018It would be a dream man, it would be a dream, especially to break that record at Eden Park,\u2019 Jansen said on the prospect of playing in the third and final test of this summer\u2019s tour.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019ll see what happens next week, but I can\u2019t wait to get involved in the week. I want more and more [caps]. This is only the start, it\u2019s not the ceiling, so I want more and more.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"Jansen is pursued by Japan\u2019s Tiennan Costley. Pic: Ben Brady\/INPHO<\/p>\n

And while Jansen<\/a> is another Ireland International to be born in New Zealand, he is quick to assure that his Irish connections have always been strong, with both maternal grandparents hailing from Belfast and Monasterevin.<\/p>\n

\u2018It was always something I wanted to do. It was the reason I signed in Ireland. I\u2019ve been supporting Ireland since I was a kid. My mum\u2019s full-Ireland, we\u2019ve always been in a half-Irish household and it was always a dream but it was kind of one of the ones you didn\u2019t know [would happen].<\/p>\n

\u2018Then I think this season with Stu [Lancaster] coming in with Connacht and the way we\u2019ve been going, it\u2019s just given me more and more confidence and it\u2019s gave the boys confidence and I just felt good out there. I loved it.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland\"The debutants, from left, Billy Bohan, Sean Jansen, Bryn Ward and Sam Illo. Pic: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

\u2018It was brilliant giving my mum a call and telling her.\u2019<\/p>\n

And it looks like there will be a big Jansen cohort at Eden Park, to the chagrin of organisers. \u2018The manager is probably going to give me a bit of stick,\u2019 Jansen explained. \u2018Because I need about 30 or 40 tickets if I\u2019m playing in that game,\u2019 he laughed. \u2018We\u2019ll just flow into next week. Faz [Farrell] was just talking, we\u2019re lucky to be able to go there and play at Eden Park.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not many teams get to play at Eden Park, so it\u2019s a massive opportunity for us to come and hopefully break that record.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s new star Sean Jansen has described potentially playing the All Blacks this weekend as a dream. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-549130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549130","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=549130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}