{"id":560366,"date":"2026-07-21T07:44:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T07:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/560366\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T07:44:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T07:44:20","slug":"all-blacks-hand-ireland-harsh-reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/560366\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks hand Ireland harsh reality check"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland finished their season with a reality check against New Zealand at Eden Park, losing 40-21 in the Nations Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The All Blacks simply blew the visitors away with their physicality in the contact area.<\/p>\n

Their defence regularly read Ireland’s attack and managed double tackles, creating turnovers.<\/p>\n

Garry Ringrose was held up by a two-man tackle in their opening attack phases, which was only the beginning of some frustrating Irish attack.<\/p>\n

The hosts clearly targeted their own attacking breakdown as a key area of the game.<\/p>\n

They arrived early and ensured that they cleared the Irish threats at all costs.<\/p>\n

Like all the best teams, they flirted with the line between accurate and illegal, nothing we haven\u2019t seen from Ireland during their most successful years.<\/p>\n

Andy Farrell’s side managed only a handful of turnovers to disrupt the New Zealand attack.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s normally a feature of the Irish game. They regularly select strong poach threats like Tadhg Beirne and Josh van der Flier.<\/p>\n

From memory, Ringrose was rewarded early in the game with a penalty for his jackal, and Van der Flier was allowed to play on after stealing the New Zealand ball in another instance.<\/p>\n

Other than that, Ireland were left frustrated by referee Nic Berry\u2019s interpretation at the ruck.<\/p>\n

\"18
\nGarry Ringrose in action against New Zealand<\/p>\n

His priority was to ensure a ‘clear runway\u2019 at the attacking breakdown, meaning if the tackler was any bit disruptive to the attacking scrum-half playing the ball, he coached the jackalling player to leave the ball alone.<\/p>\n

The Australian’s intention was to create a free-flowing game with less breakdown penalties. Tadhg Beirne was most frustrated by these calls.<\/p>\n

It must be said that this was the most consistent part of Berry\u2019s game. Another referee would have rewarded Jordie Barrett for some of his poach efforts, but not in this case. It meant that the first arriving player at the defensive breakdown was much less effective, which took a strength away from Ireland.<\/p>\n

Ireland should have focussed their attention on the areas of the game that were within their control.<\/p>\n

Their setpiece was much more effective than the previous few weeks.<\/p>\n

They began the game with the lowest lineout percentages of any Nations Championship team, with just over 70% return. They increased that last weekend to 92%, which is very acceptable.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve had to innovate with regards to winning their lineout, which isn\u2019t the best platform to attack from.<\/p>\n

They won multiple balls from a standing position at the front of the lineout.<\/p>\n

This makes the pass to the out-half or midfield much longer and allows the opposition take away time and space from the attack. This limits innovative first-phase plays.<\/p>\n

New Zealand by comparison were much more comfortable with winning their lineout ball and launched more threatening setpiece plays, which shortened Ireland\u2019s defensive line far easier.<\/p>\n

The Triple Crown winners also won lineout ball from three-man lineouts with Jamison Gibson-Park at the front as a bailout option.<\/p>\n

\"18
\nIreland lost their fourth game in a row against New Zealand<\/p>\n

The most basic goal of the lineout is to win your own ball. You can\u2019t attack without it.<\/p>\n

After doing that, you\u2019d like to be more ambitious with where you win the ball to launch an attack with more options.<\/p>\n

Ireland will need to revisit their lineout if they want to challenge the top teams in the next phase of the Nations Championship in November.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s attack was also littered with handling errors.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, they were challenged by the All Blacks defence, who pressurised the Irish attack and closed down wider channels.<\/p>\n

They created a glove around the Irish attack and then swarmed their midfield with double tackles. Not everything was within Ireland\u2019s control in that sense.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Ireland coughed up a lot of possession when they should have been in control.<\/p>\n

Sam Prendergast\u2019s offload was disrupted after Hugo Keenan\u2019s line-break in the first half and his pass found touch instead of his own player. Beirne was caught flat in another attack, resulting in his offload going forward.<\/p>\n

Gibson-Park wasn\u2019t at his best either last weekend.<\/p>\n

Through attacking confusion or his own inaccuracy, a number of his passes went to nobody. Irish players looked around scratching their heads on a few too many occasions.<\/p>\n

Ireland closed the gap to just seven points after All Blacks dominance in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

\"18
\nIreland’s lineout performance showed improvement<\/p>\n

Immediately following the kick-off receipt, Ireland chose not to exit efficiently. Instead, they overplayed in their own 22 and coughed up another seven-pointer through a Stuart McCloskey pass that neither Prendergast or Keenan were expecting.<\/p>\n

It was a nail in the coffin of Ireland\u2019s realistic chance.<\/p>\n

Sloppy attack and easy turnovers won\u2019t hurt the top teams, but it\u2019s something that Ireland can control when they come back together in November.<\/p>\n

What Ireland struggled to control and contain was the All Blacks attack.<\/p>\n

When Dave Rennie’s side turned on their power game and attacked Ireland in close quarters, they gave up offside penalties or gainline and momentum.<\/p>\n

New Zealand controlled physical proceedings for long stretches of the game and Ireland struggled to find the answers required.<\/p>\n

We saw snippets of what Ireland can do to a very connected defence. Jack Conan\u2019s try to close the gap to 14-7 and Joe McCarthy\u2019s try after half time reminded us what Ireland can achieve with accuracy and fewer errors.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, these sustained periods were limited for Ireland in Auckland.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s possession was reduced to only 41%.<\/p>\n

Farrell has built his attack on being in possession, compared to a team like France who are happy to kick the ball away in favour of an attack transition game plan.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s error-strewn performance fell short of what was needed on the final day of their season.<\/p>\n

The positive is that they now know where they stand and have time to make fixes going into a very important 2027 season.<\/p>\n

It was a frustrating performance from Ireland, but they can use these frustrations to find solutions and build a more effective game going into a World Cup year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland finished their season with a reality check against New Zealand at Eden Park, losing 40-21 in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-560366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560366","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=560366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}