Spat between Sexton and Ioane has added another layer of intrigue to first meeting since 2023 quarter-final
In Ireland we have a curious custom of thanking the bus driver when he or she pulls up at our stop. No one knows how or where it started, but this salute on your step out the door is widespread, and has endured. So, you’re asking yourself, maybe Rieko Ioane was getting in on the action when Ireland’s designated quarter-final stop arrived at last year’s World Cup, the last time these teams met. The Kiwis were driving the bus at the time. Maybe he was asking Johnny Sexton if Ireland’s departing legend had forgotten his manners.
Not according to Sexton’s account. That little poisonous interplay between them has hurried this fixture along, even if Ireland’s fly-half is involved now only in the background as coach to the 10s in the squad, and won’t be on site for this. For sure, though, there’ll be something in the air.
“Hopefully – that’s what everyone wants, isn’t it?” Andy Farrell says. “They want it as well. That’s what normally happens when the All Blacks come into town anyway. I haven’t seen it any different to that so I think Irish rugby’s in a good place. I think everyone knows New Zealand are always the team to beat so I expect it to be as good as ever, if not better.”
Even without that added ingredient tickets were snapped up for a fixture Farrell has been targeting since a satisfying summer, ending all square, in South Africa. In his pre-tour budget the New Zealand coach, Scott Robertson, would have allowed for a big spend at the Aviva.
Consider the drain on resources: team leaders Beauden Barrett and Codie Taylor removed this week from a frame that looks unfinished since the departure of Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick, Aaron Smith and Richie Mo’unga.
So it’s hard to put a price on the value of an away win in this fixture, their 12th Test of a season with three defeats en route. This is not just a period of Kiwi transition for new players and a new coaching staff, but against the backdrop set by their performance coach, Sir Wayne Smith, to regain their aura through brave, attacking rugby, there needs to be scope for mistakes. That wouldn’t be a default position for the New Zealand rugby public.
They were blessed to get out of Twickenham last weekend with that win, but along with the good fortune was a glimpse of how smooth this remodelled New Zealand machine can be. Consider the way Ellis Genge, in the first half, found himself empathising with a stranded wildebeest in the Serengeti. England’s loosehead was picked off, scarred by the experience which cost his side seven points.
This wasn’t an example of managing the chaos Smith speaks of, rather it was somewhere in between structure and ad lib. First they tweaked the England defence in the hope it would throw up a potential victim – Genge was that man – and second, how he was mugged became a matter of choice, worked out on the hoof between Barrett and Will Jordan.
If you were any one of Ireland’s propping contingent for Friday night, which doesn’t include the injured Tadhg Furlong, you’d be on red alert for being left at home alone like that. That’s before you consider the number of bodies needed to cope with a burglary by Mark Tele’a.
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And if you were keeping an injury watch on hookers Ronan Kelleher and Rob Herring you’d be concerned about the juice in those two tanks, post injury. Against that, at last, Ireland start with their best available back row trio, shifting Tadhg Beirne to the short side, and otherwise are well tooled up. New Zealand, with Wallace Sititi, Sam Cane and Ardie Savea across the back of the scrum, are in decent nick there too.
Given the recent history in this fixture – Ireland have won three of the last five meetings – the relationship between the two nations has shifted to something different.
“Yeah, and a healthy one,” Farrell says of the change. “A good one. It’s exactly how we would want it anyway. I suppose New Zealand over the years have had it in a sense where they probably thought they should win against Ireland, but hopefully the way that we’ve performed, or improved since Soldier Field [where Ireland were victorious in 2016], hopefully the respect is a little bit higher from their side for us now.”
Farrell, literally, was playing a different game when Ireland mostly were in the cannon fodder category against the All Blacks. Those were the days when the only challenging questions asked of the Kiwis came post match with the request to name any Irish player who had made life difficult for them. If it had been a bus journey it’s doubtful they’d have known what stop was for their opponents. And no one was pausing to say thanks.
