NZ v Ireland, Chicago, 4 November 2016

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IRELAND v NEW ZEALAND
5 November 2016
15:00 CDT / 20:00 GMT
Soldier Field, Chicago, USA

Live on eir Sport and BT Sport

Referee: Mathieu Raynal (France)
Assistant Referees: Luke Pearce (England), Ben Whitehouse (Wales)
TMO: Rowan Kitt (England)

A. Head to Head

28 Played 28
0 Won 27
1 Drawn 1
27 Lost 0
310 Points 812

B. Recent Form

24 November 2013
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
22 – 24 to New Zealand

23 June 2012
Waikato Stadium, Hamilton
60 – 0 to New Zealand

16 June 2012
Rugby League Park, Christchurch
22 – 19 to New Zealand

9 June 2012
Eden Park, Auckland
42 – 10 to New Zealand

20 November 2010
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
18 – 38 to New Zealand

C. Teams


NEW ZEALAND 

1. Joe Moody
2. Dane Coles
3. Owen Franks
4. Patrick Tuipulotu
5. Jerome Kaino
6. Liam Squire
7. Sam Cane
8. Kieran Read – captain
9. Aaron Smith
10. Beauden Barrett
11. Julian Savea
12. Ryan Crotty
13. George Moala
14. Waisake Naholo
15. Ben Smith

16. Codie Taylor
17. Ofa Tu’ungafasi
18. Charlie Faumuina
19. Scott Barrett
20. Ardie Savea
21. TJ Perenara
22. Aaron Cruden
23. Malakai Fekitoa


IRELAND

1 McGrath
2 Best
3 Furlong
4 Ryan
5 Toner
6 Stander
7 Murphy
8 Heaslip
9 Murray
10 Sexton
11 Zebo
12 Henshaw
13 Payne
14 Trimble
15 Kearney
16 Cronin
17 Healy
18 Bealham
19 Dillane
20 van der Flier
21 Marmion
22 Carbery
23 Ringrose

Heartfelt congratulations Ireland, to paraphrase a great Borderer - "There will be dancing in the moonlight in Meath tonight"

Kiwi fans are brilliant in defeat

That was for Axel


May be drunk for a week.

Well done Ireland, that was amazing

I watched the highlights this morning so again, well done Ireland, the tries you scored were brilliant. You've given me reason to BELIEVE again .

What a fabulous match, a wonderful advert for the game. I was so convinced that NZ would come back, but that was an inspired performance by Ireland. I would say they will be a fair few hangovers this morning, but I'd imagine most are still drunk!

I think we're all ignoring the bigger issue here.

The statistics prove clearly that Ireland had to cut free the dead wood of all of those gigantic losers like Brian O'Driscoll and Paul O'Connell before they could bring in some *real* talent.

( )

It's true - Brian O' D been holding back the potential of this Ireland for centuries! I'm finally glad we've offloaded him before the 22nd Century starts. First decent offload from an Irish team in 111 years!

eirebilly wrote:Kiwi fans are brilliant in defeat

That was for Axel


May be drunk for a week.

I love Kiwis. A grand bunch of people. And it's even sweeter to love'em when beating them, using a few of their guys to help the process. It's a feckin' Love-in!

maestegmafia wrote:Well done Ireland.

I lost my voice.

You were magic

Maesteg

SecretFly wrote:It's true - Brian O' D been holding back the potential of this Ireland for centuries!  I'm finally glad we've offloaded him before the 22nd Century starts.  First decent offload from an Irish team in 111 years!

Gatland did it first .

mikey_dragon wrote:

SecretFly wrote:It's true - Brian O' D been holding back the potential of this Ireland for centuries!  I'm finally glad we've offloaded him before the 22nd Century starts.  First decent offload from an Irish team in 111 years!

Gatland did it first .

But he came back and bit poor Gats on the ass the following Spring. You see, old Gats didn't drive the stake deep enough. BOD is one of the old breed of Vampire - the stake has to go all the way in.

SecretFly wrote:

eirebilly wrote:Kiwi fans are brilliant in defeat

That was for Axel


May be drunk for a week.

I love Kiwis.  A grand bunch of people.  And it's even sweeter to love'em when beating them, using a few of their guys to help the process.  It's a feckin' Love-in!

Calm down mate!

Haha, nah it's really cool and it is literally a love-in

But if yas beat us again in a couple weeks....well, we may need to talk

I'm a little late in saying it but well done Ireland, pleased for you fellas.

So glad Schmidt signed his contract extension before this game!

He'll have been disappointed with our last Six Nations- but since then we've had our first ever win away to South Africa and our first ever win against New Zealand. We've now beaten every other tier 1 international side at least once with him as coach

Just watching the last 20 minutes again; Payne and Trimble excellent in the decisions they made when the All Blacks moved the ball wide. There's no-one better at attacking the wide channels that New Zealand but they applied a lot of pressure and forced several mistakes. Lot of uncharacteristic errors from New Zealand, but many due to Irish defence- not just aggressive, but very smart

Lot of credit has to go to Andy Farrell

Also the commentary- after the final try the summariser makes the conservative estimate 'Henshaw has made about 500 tackles'

George Carlin wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:Given Soldier Field is quite narrow and there's a wide concourse around the pitch, kicks should be aimed well enough so that throw-ins can't be taken quickly.    The New Zealand lineout should be tested early on to see how well they cope, and to see if their throw can be put under pressure.

Attacking out wide will likely bear little fruit, but in around the breakdown with quick hands and hard carries should pay some dividends and make distance.   Argentina did this quite successfully in their test.  Power plays against NZ in this area were quite effective for us before.

A patient controlling game that does not tire out players is what's needed to combat the forced pace from New Zealand.  I'd also think that replacements should be delayed by a few minutes longer so that the young, pacy bench can withstand the greater temp of the 55-75 high-scoring period.   And that Ireland can attack themselves.  

Could be an interesting match to see how respective tactics work out.

I've gone for a 1-5 point win for Ireland.

Dammit!  Everything going as planned and then bloody Henshaw had to score.

Cheers GC. And to make my head feel better this morning, I discovered that I'd bet €25 on Ireland winning by more than 5 at 25/1

Drinks are on Pot Hale so

Golden wrote:Drinks are on Pot Hale so

I'm boring. I've already moved on - my mind is already sitting in Joe's Monday Morning Inquisition office ready for serious 'what can we improve on? - where did we fail?' work.

The ABs will learn quickly - they'll adapt, they'll quickly work out what they did wrong - and it'll be an even bigger task to stick with them next time. Yeah - I'm getting greedy, I'm staying sober;)

SecretFly wrote:

Golden wrote:Drinks are on Pot Hale so

I'm boring.  I've already moved on - my mind is already sitting in Joe's Monday Morning Inquisition office ready for serious 'what can we improve on? - where did we fail?' work.

The ABs will learn quickly - they'll adapt, they'll quickly work out what they did wrong - and it'll be an even bigger task to stick with them next time.  Yeah - I'm getting greedy, I'm staying sober;)

I watched the press conference afterwards and Schmidt was asked about Carberry coming on at 10 and winning against the All Blacks in his first cap

"Yeah there were a few good kicks, a few loose kicks..."

I was hugely impressed by both the work rate and intelligence the Irish players displayed. They were working so hard off the ball to put themselves in the right places to constantly frustrate the ABs, while picking and choosing which battles to fight at the tackle area.

I was slightly concerned that they may run out of energy, especially when NZ started their fight back, but the arrival of replacements provide a nice boost to energy levels.

Great win, hope the heads are not too bad.

That final Irish try...

What a scoregasm!

Heaslip seems to get a bit of stick at times, but his line off the base of the scrum (in fact just choosing to actually run aggressively from the base rather then go safety first and look for a pen was amazing) and then the awareness for the offload under so much pressure with everything on the balance was phenomenal.

Well done lads, I was sure the AB's were going to go on and win after Barretts try.

I thought Carberry was excellent when he came on, that kick into the corner was a thing of beauty.

Was a fantastic match. We all kept thinking the ABs would turn it up in the second half - and they did. But I think all the defensive pressure and strong hits early on added up. Had everyone on the edge of their seats right to the end. Big win and bigger congratulations.

My club had a lot of people at the match, and from I was told, last night was a highly un-sober evening.

Cyril wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:Does this count as an away win for ireland?

I assume it's a neutral ground win. They gain 2 points in rankings and NZ lose 2 (I think).

I have no recollection of typing this question.
What a night

Hopefully now we've heard the last forever of the tedious Leinster Zebo-haters and Munster Heaslip-haters. That was a performance of a real team and I really think that we have now turned a corner. No doubt NZ are going to come back at us in two weeks like wounded lions buy yesterday has shown that when we play to our strengths and not to NZ strengths we can compete with them as equals.

On a scale of 1 to 10, think Conor Murray is due an 11. Best SH performance in best Irish performance I've ever seen - and I'm an old git who starred watching rugby in the 60's

The most pleasing aspect of the match was the way Ireland finished. They were really rattled when NZ scored those 3 tries and it looked a certainty that they would add a few more but the Irish players composed themselves, steadied the ship and finished strongly.


Its a mental mountain they've climbed and as they say, the monkey off the back.

Ireland bucked the trend. Go back as far as you like many teams have put NZ on the back foot then come off the gas and shipped 3 or 4 tries in 20 minutes. NZ will ship scores but they also come back with interest. On this occasion, similar to when England hammered them a few years ago, NZ had no answer to relentless irish pressure and the fact they played for 80 minutes.

And built up a big lead in the first half, which they (Ire and Eng a few years ago) held onto in the opening 10 mins of the second half.

Cyril I posted a reply to your question will I be supporting England
next week.? YES I WILL
As to this match judging by the reports, few Nz players had a good
game.One of those matches Ireland just blew them away.
As an NZ supporter I`ve always advocated one game at a time approach
They couldn't help not having the only 3 experienced locks unavailable
but changing an otherwise winning team was with hindsight a mistake.
Whether it would have made a difference who knows?
As previously written thought it was a mistake BUT NOTHING takes
away Ireland`s performance twice recently they came close this
time the cigar.
With more injuries occurring in midfield this could be one tour
losing 3 out of 4 France and wayne barnes as the last match.
Scott Barrett apparently had a good debut so there`s some
hope this time for rest of tour.
Even Jordie Barrett may get a run versus Italy there first win
v NZ too?

Congratulations Ireland. Finally getting the monkey off the back after coming so close.

A hearty congratulations to the Irish for finally breaking the hoodoo of New Zealand.

You really did show the way to beat New Zealand.

So Joe does know better than me!!! Didn't see that one coming!

Nice shimmy from Kearney in the lead up to CJ's try. If I was being a little critical though he did miss a tackle or two.

5 tries against the All Blacks who only conceded 5 in the entire RC - insane!

All Blacks have only ever conceded 40 points or more 5 times in their history (is that really true?).

These guys go into folklore now. Crazy to think of all the greats that never managed it.

Final shout out to Heaslip! He's done it all now!

yappysnap wrote:That final Irish try...

What a scoregasm!

Heaslip seems to get a bit of stick at times, but his line off the base of the scrum (in fact just choosing to actually run aggressively from the base rather then go safety first and look for a pen was amazing) and then the awareness for the offload under so much pressure with everything on the balance was phenomenal.

Was watching the highlights with NZ commentary, they said right before he picked from the base that they'd be shocked if Ireland didn't keep the ball in the scrum! That would be the NH way, but Ireland weren't playing it like that.

Rory Best said when he was interviewed that they talked about attacking New Zealand at half-time. There's no point in sitting back and defending, we defended really well and they still scored 29 points. You have to take some risks and score some tries to beat them, and the risks we took ultimately paid off. Not just for the Henshaw try, we also turned down 3 points to go for the corner right before the Zebo try. When you see how easily they open up even good defences despite being off-form, it wouldn't surprise me if they go another 18 games unbeaten now.

We need to back it up with another good performance in a fortnight but I'll take that fantastic victory and forget everything else for a wee while. I am hungover and utterly hating being in work this morning but I still have a smile on my face. That's the Schmidt's Ireland I've been expecting. Legends!!!

Biltong wrote:A hearty congratulations to the Irish for finally breaking the hoodoo of New Zealand.

You really did show the way to beat New Zealand.

Thanks Billtong and in fairness to New Zealand fans they have been incredibly sporting as have the team and management.

My thoughts on the game:

Trimble's defensive efforts on Savea were incredible. It is not often that Savea gets completely shut out in a match. Unsung hero for me.
Conor Murray is the best scrum half in the world now. No question. He was an 11 when everyone else in that match was a 9 or below.
Zebo had a great game. His kick chase and focus was excellent. When he caught a box kick on the 60th minute he was taken out (by accident) in the air by a Kiwi. Laws dictate it should have been a red as he landed on his back. However, this match showed ABs don't get reds. Hansen also predictably said that moody's tackle on Henshaw was "an accident".
Vindication for Schmidt. we played to our strengths and we played with incredible courage. We didnt run everything as we did in the 6N we played much smarter mixing it up.
The ABs arent an 80 minute team. They usually come alive in the 2nd half. They are still the best team in the world though.
Rory Best is the most under rated player in the northern hemisphere. His influence on this Irish team is incredible.

Zebo one was never a red card as there was a proper contest for the ball but as you said Zebo was brilliant to get it. They were more lucky that Moody missed out on a second yellow. I'm sure if it was his first offence he would have got a yellow, particularly as NZ had been warned late in the 1st half over team discipline.

Well hells bells didn't see that coming. Best performance in history bar none.

A special mention for the Munster boys - Murray and Zebo were sensational, obviously Axel played a big part in this victory. Rob Kearney rolled back the years too and is a different player under Joe.

At 29-33 it looked for all the world the ABs would sucker punch us again but the composure at the end for Henshaw's was something I haven't seen from an Irish side before - awesome result and makes up for Ulsters dismal showing on Friday....

No 7&1/2 wrote:Zebo one was never a red card as there was a proper contest for the ball but as you said Zebo was brilliant to get it. They were more lucky that Moody missed out on a second yellow. I'm sure if it was his first offence he would have got a yellow, particularly as NZ had been warned late in the 1st half over team discipline.

Based on precedent it was although I dont agree with the precedent and dont think there was anything the AB could have done about it. The AB didnt jump for it and therefore it is his responsibility to ensure Zebo lands safely. I dont agree with that rule and I think it is a joke but if Zebo was injured it would have been a red.

It was about competing for the ball now and personally I think the NZ was in the perfect position to do so, and did so. I wasn't expecting Zebo to get near that, brilliant take and rightly play on for me.

No 7&1/2 wrote:It was about competing for the ball now and personally I think the NZ was in the perfect position to do so, and did so. I wasn't expecting Zebo to get near that, brilliant take and rightly play on for me.

It isn't about competing for the ball. Ulster v Saracens a few years ago. Jared Payne was competing for the ball, never took his eyes off it and yet because he was on the ground and Goode was in the air and ended up injured Payne got a straight red.

Again I think it is fair that there was no sanction, there was nothing Perenara (?) could do and it would have been a ridiculous red. My beef is there is no consistency in the application of this rule.

Rule and how to interpret it has changed since then Guns so not relevant.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Rule and how to interpret it has changed since then Guns so not relevant.

Thanks. What was changed? I clearly missed that.

Rules are followed, Laws are interpreted. Rugby has laws not rules

It's now a judgement by the ref/assistants as to whether there was competition for the ball. If they thought there was, the resulting fall by Zebo is immaterial now. You could argue that the NZ player wasn't competing, from my viewing I thought he was.

And thanks Pete, the law/interpretation has changed!

Guns - clarified so that a fair contest is allowed, hit in the air is a penalty, player lands on his front / feet no card on his back yellow on his head / neck red

No 7&1/2 wrote:It's now a judgement by the ref/assistants as to whether there was competition for the ball. If they thought there was, the resulting fall by Zebo is immaterial now. You could argue that the NZ player wasn't competing, from my viewing I thought he was.

And thanks Pete, the law/interpretation has changed!

No I think he was competing for the ball. Wasn't aware of the rule change. I always maintained it was a stupid rule IMO. Too many people were sent off for doing things they had very little control over.

One thing that annoys me is there are still a few articles that make reference to "the luck of the Irish".

Any team that wins a big game can at times get a bit of luck. Maybe the NZ locks being missing or some of Reynal's decisions could be considered lucky.

However, there were ways in which we had no luck. Sexton getting injured, POM and SOB not being match fit, Ben Smith's try being awarded, Moody not getting a red for the tackle or a second yellow for a high tackle, Beauden Barrett actually kicking most his goals for once etc. etc.

In general I think luck didn't play much of a part when compared to other much more prominent factors.

Sexton getting injured is standard isn't it ?

Where did Kearney find this form from ?

What a game that was, big congrats guys

If Ireland had been without their 2 best locks, it wouldn't have had a mention win, lose or draw.

Arguably they were without one of them in Henderson.