{"id":526390,"date":"2026-07-14T23:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/526390\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T23:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:42:09","slug":"all-blacks-v-ireland-eden-parks-32-year-record-faces-test-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/526390\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks v Ireland: Eden Park\u2019s 32-year record faces test threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is unscientific, educated guesswork \u2013 although the record over the past 32 years<\/a> suggests it has merit \u2013 but the bigger the occasion, it seems the more likely it is that preserving the unbeaten record will be a greater motivational factor for the All Blacks than it will be for their opponents to stop it.<\/p>\n

\"CodieCodie Taylor leads the All Blacks haka at Eden Park. Photo \/ SmartFrame<\/p>\n

Each time these huge encounters have come around, the All Blacks have carried the weight of history well \u2013 been inspired and driven by it rather than burdened and overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

And paradoxically, it\u2019s maybe this truism about the All Blacks being geared for the highest-profile games that gives Ireland a serious chance of being the ones to stop the record run.<\/p>\n

They are a good rather than a great team \u2013 not in the same class as the cohort who came here four years ago and won the three-test series 2-1<\/a>, after losing the first encounter at Eden Park.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a biggish test as Ireland are universally agreed to be the hardest of the three opponents the All Blacks will face<\/a> in the July leg of the newly launched Nations Championship, but it\u2019s not necessarily a high-stakes encounter.<\/p>\n

No one yet has any great sense of excitement about the Nations Championship<\/a>, so without that universal buy-in or agreement that this is a competition that matters, what we have at Eden Park is a classic, one-off test against Ireland.<\/p>\n

That has value and consequence, but there is no wider, dramatic narrative around which to frame this game, and so the conditions for an Irish win feel perfect.<\/p>\n

\"FansFans look on as the All Blacks defend their remarkable record at Eden Park. Photo \/ SmartFrame<\/p>\n

If the All Blacks are to be beaten at Eden Park, it seems more likely that it will come in relatively nondescript circumstances \u2013 a mostly unmemorable Irish team eking out a gutsy, grinding win on a drizzly night in a competition that no one particularly cared about.<\/p>\n

On these lower-key occasions, it feels like the balance of power swings to the visitor \u2013 that the motivation to be the team that makes history by being the one that ends a 32-year-record, is greater than it is for the All Blacks trying to preserve it.<\/p>\n

And so maybe it\u2019s worth asking \u2013 not that this should be read as a predetermination of the result by any means \u2013 how a nation will feel should the Eden Park unbeaten run end on Saturday?<\/p>\n

Will it be cause for a morose, long, deep introspective look at the state of the game and reason to feel that New Zealand has in some ill-defined way, regressed in yet another way?<\/p>\n

Or will it be a shoulder shrug, a quick and easy acceptance that it had to happen one day and that a decent Irish team beating an All Blacks outfit trying to rebuild and find themselves again after two years of vagueness seems about right?<\/p>\n

Certainly last year, when the All Blacks were sitting on a mediocre win rate and hadn\u2019t captured the imagination in any way with the way they were playing, a defeat at Eden Park to South Africa would have felt monumental and era-defining<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ArdieArdie Savea starred for the All Blacks against the Springboks at Eden Park last year. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

A Springboks win at the spiritual home \u2013 two years after they had beaten the All Blacks in the World Cup final \u2013 would have confirmed that South Africa had usurped New Zealand as the game\u2019s leading power<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It would also, almost certainly, have made it nearly impossible for Scott Robertson to have survived into a third year as head coach<\/a> \u2013 which he didn\u2019t do anyway despite the All Blacks winning.<\/p>\n

But now, with a new, higher-functioning New Zealand Rugby (NZR) board, a new high-performance director in Don Tricker, a new high-performance manager in Conrad Smith<\/a>, a new chief executive, chief financial officer and chief commercial officer<\/a> and a new coaching team in the All Blacks, much of the angst about where the game is heading has dissipated.<\/p>\n

There are still tough challenges to be faced \u2013 the ever-rising power of the NRL and its incursion into the wider Pacific region, the apathy of teenagers, eradicating the fear of head injuries<\/a> \u2013 but it feels like NZR is much better equipped and with better people to deal with what lies ahead.<\/p>\n

And so a defeat, if it comes on Saturday night, might not be a catastrophe \u2013 more a sobering guide to indicate to a new All Blacks coaching team that they have more work to do than perhaps they realised to ready this team for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand\u2019s most respected rugby writers and columnists.<\/a> He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is unscientific, educated guesswork \u2013 although the record over the past 32 years suggests it has merit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[260342,3469,5263,17517,6726,1558,8136,169842,8142,6119,68690,1345,260343,8019,5836,3556,111,139,69,8143,9224,10538,1974,260344,39023,137094,213,16674,765,165,684,8229,1555,6923,59345,1530],"class_list":["post-526390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-32year","tag-agreed","tag-all","tag-because","tag-become","tag-been","tag-blacks","tag-commonly","tag-eden","tag-faces","tag-havent","tag-home","tag-invincibility","tag-ireland","tag-lost","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-park","tag-parks","tag-play","tag-record","tag-selfstyled","tag-sense","tag-spiritual","tag-sports","tag-stadium","tag-test","tag-their","tag-there","tag-they","tag-threat","tag-what","tag-whenever","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}