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Ireland will face a vastly different All Black team this time around

Garry Ringrose put in a Herculean shift against the All Blacks (Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

The All Blacks side that will face Ireland in the first test will not be anywhere near the same as the one that was beaten in Dublin by a dominant Ireland side last November.

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On that day, New Zealand could not control the gain line as a clinical Irish team found themselves on top early. They whipped the ball wide as frequently as they liked and ran over the All Blacks all day long in a commanding performance that forced the visitors into 232 tackles.

Seven months is a long time in international rugby and the All Blacks will make wholesale changes to that losing side.

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The starting halfback TJ Perenara, who was outplayed by Jamison Gibson-Park, is one casualty and will be missing from the All Blacks.

His service from the base of the ruck was not his best that day. Multiple times Anton Lienert-Brown rushed in to play halfback in a panicked frenzy, stepping over Perenara’s toes as the side couldn’t settle down and get into a flow early in the game.

Lienert-Brown will also not be on the field, having succumbed to injury, forcing the All Blacks to think up a new midfield.

The absence of Joe Moody will be another big difference. It might not seem like much, but when a player is off by five percent, it is significant.

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The ever-reliable hard man was clearly not his best in last year’s test. Such are the demands of the global calendar, Moody was one of a few All Blacks walking off the line when on defence, pausing for a rest before the ball came his way on occasion.

He was slipping off multiple tackles less than a half hour in, a sign that not all was right.

Intensity and energy you bring off-the-ball at test level is a big difference maker. Some All Blacks were below their best in this aspect of play, and David Havili’s comments to media on Tuesday suggest there may have been a few tired bodies in that match.

If Moody was healthy, no doubt he would give a much better showing this time around, with next month’s test series coming earlier in the season. His injury will open the door for Crusaders teammate George Bower to take over at loosehead.

Furthermore, last year’s starting blindside flanker, Ethan Blackadder, is also out.

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He put in an industrious performance that afternoon with plenty of work rate, but was lacking in effectiveness to help the All Blacks stop the Irish roll as the Kiwis made an insane amount of tackles without being able to turn over the ball.

Elsewhere, star first-five Beauden Barrett was gone after 20 minutes after suffering a concussion.

The Blues playmaker has played his way into vintage attacking form this season, rediscovering his sharp running game. Odds are he will resuming the starting role at No 10 in next Saturday’s first test in Auckland.

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Then there are the new or returning faces.

Neither Leicester Fainga’anuku or Caleb Clarke were there last November, but they will present a tough ask to tackle as power options on the left wing.

The last time Ireland visited these shores, a young Julian Savea romped to a hat-trick on debut. History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme sometimes.

Jack Goodhue is fit and healthy and was back to some of his best form in the Crusaders’ Super Rugby Pacific final win over the Blues. Given his defensive ability at test level, he is a good chance of taking over the 13 jersey off Ioane to give the midfield some much needed experience in Lienert-Brown’s absence.

Aaron Smith is back at halfback and will presumably start with the explosive Folau Fakatava available to provide impact from the bench, while returning captain Sam Cane should start at No 7, forcing Dalton Papalii back to the bench.

That means many as seven new players will take over starting roles, and if you credit Mo’unga with having played most of the match last time after Barrett’s knock, that would make it eight.

Perhaps there will be more, depending on how the selectors want to play, but it will be a vastly different side – a better one – that Ireland will have to overcome to make history by beating the All Blacks in New Zealand for the first time.

Ireland will bring maybe the best touring squad from Europe to visit New Zealand since Sir Clive Woodward’s 2003 England side, outside of the 2017 British & Irish Lions.

Although Andy Farrell’s team have not claimed a Six Nations title in the last two seasons, they have lost just three tests out of 15 in that timeframe.

Two of those three losses have been to France, currently the world’s best team, while the third loss to Wales came after an early red card to Peter O’Mahoney in the 2021 Six Nations.

Having won nine of their last 10 tests, including last November’s victory over the All Blacks, this Ireland team is in-form and playing an extremely proficient game with few weaknesses.

Ireland have a good chance to clinch at least one win on New Zealand soil over the All Blacks, and they have the players to do it, but they won’t be playing the same side from seven months ago.

They will face a younger All Black side that has been re-tooled to find something that has been missing, and we will find out if they have found it very shortly.

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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