This was arguably the greatest one-off win in the history of Irish rugby. Yet the photographers present for this seismic night in Dunedin weren’t presented with a catalogue of wild celebratory pictures akin to Chicago 2016, or the Aviva in 2018 and 2021. They had to scan into the stands and the partying pockets of green for that.
While many of us on the outside would have regarded this tour as a success if Ireland came away from this daunting odyssey with a breakthrough Test win it became clear immediately after Saturday’s utterly deserved 23-12 victory that the squad themselves had targeted a series win from the first day they came together. This was but a means to an end.
Yet, in the privacy of the dressing-room especially, it still had to be savoured. Ireland had joined an elite list of just five countries, along with South Africa, Australia, France and England to beat the All Blacks in New Zealand, and just a sixth team if one includes the British & Irish Lions. Many of the greats of Irish rugby could only have dreamed of a day or night like this.
Beating the All Blacks in New Zealand is perhaps the biggest box Ireland have ticked in a long sequence of them since the 2009 Grand Slam. Beating the All Blacks is special.
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[ Gerry Thornley: Special night in Dunedin as Ireland savour historic victory over the All Blacks ]
“It is,” agreed Tadhg Beirne, after his own colossal performance. “It’s funny you say that because Paulie (O’Connell) came up to myself, Cheese (James Ryan) and Treads (Kieran Treadwell) and was just chatting to us. He said to us ‘You lads don’t even realise it, how special it is. This hasn’t happened to Irish teams before. You boys have almost got used to beating them.’ But I wouldn’t say that! We’ve also lost to them a lot of times and lost to them in big games. But Paulie never got to beat them and we’ve done it now twice in 12 months. That’s pretty special for this group.”
Indeed, O’Connell was on the losing side in all nine of his Tests against the All Blacks, but at least he contributed to this win as the team’s forwards coach. Brian O’Driscoll played against them 14 times and lost the lot.
Those two greats, along with Tommy Bowe, Gordon D’Arcy, Devin Toner, Sean O’Brien and others, never had the chance to savour a win over the All Blacks. But they contributed in some ways too, for they were all part of the team beaten so heartbreakingly in the Aviva Stadium in 2013 in just Joe Schmidt’s third game in charge.
[ Keith Earls to captain Ireland against Maori All BlacksOpens in new window ]
More so than in the second Test in Christchurch a decade ago or any of the other near misses, that pulsating 2013 encounter demonstrated it was possible. That was the precursor. That fuelled Chicago, which has in turn instilled the belief for the ensuing victories.
Johnny Sexton missed a 72nd minute penalty in that 2013 game to push Ireland eight points and two scores ahead, but since then he has started nine Tests against the All Blacks — seven with Ireland two with the Lions — and has been on the winning side five times, with one draw and three defeats.
While he described this as “a great day for the country”, Sexton added: “We got a small result tonight and there is obviously something bigger at stake now.”
The All Blacks have exacted retribution for each of the last three defeats and Sexton knows they are a dangerous beast when wounded.
“They’re an incredibly proud rugby nation. They’ll come out firing like they did last week, like they this week and we’ll need to be prepared for that but at the same time we need to just concentrate on ourselves.
“We always give the opposition the respect they deserve. We’ll do our analysis and they’ll throw something different at us next week in terms of probably personnel, in terms of something different, and we’ll do that, but at the same time we’ll focus on what we can do better cos there’s plenty of things that we need to do better on both sides of the ball if we want to get a series win down here.”
“For the amount of times we were in their 22 we didn’t score as many tries, we didn’t take as many opportunities that were presented to us, a couple of overlaps that we didn’t take and a couple of mistakes that we made.
“Obviously they make things hard for you of course. They play right on the edge but that’s where we need to be better. Against these guys you need to be clinical. We took a couple of chances but we also left a couple out there and if we want to be a really top team then that’s where we need to get better.”
Although the skipper limped off with a knee injury in the 73rd minute after making a covering tackle on Will Jordan, his eighth of the match, he said he had “just tweaked my knee a bit”, and added “I’ll be okay” for next Saturday’s series decider in Wellington, where both the Irish and All Blacks’ squads arrived yesterday.
Even so, it will be reassuring when that is confirmed and Sexton, who turns 37 today (Monday) is named in the team on Thursday. Ireland are also awaiting the outcome of Peter O’Mahony’s HIA 3 before determining if he did or didn’t suffer concussion last Saturday.
Garry Ringrose’s confirmed case of concussion as a result of the head-to-head hit by Angus Ta’avao which earned the All Blacks replacement prop a red card means he will miss the third Test.
