New Zealand beef up pack to face Ireland

Ireland started the second half by asking New Zealand some more questions, but the All Blacks had the answers in defence, despite Ireland spending the majority of the first ten minutes threatening the All Blacks.

Australia might have conceded 108 points in three-straight defeats to New Zealand this year, but they still dispatched Wales 32-8 in Cardiff and France 25-23 in Paris this month.

Ireland, meanwhile, used the precise kicking game of Johnny Sexton to generate offensive driving mauls and build an ultimately unassailable lead. We’ll be hugely disappointed if we go out and we lose because we don’t perform to the best of our ability.

“I have to compliment them on their defence as they held us up over the line several times – it is debatable whether we also held up Beauden Barrett for his try (the TMO awarded it despite one image showing Sexton had prevented him from grounding the ball)”.

Irish skipper Rory Best attempted to approach Peyper after Fekitoa’s try, his second of the night, but the referee brushed away his protests.

“It’s not like they’ve had a short turnaround, they’ve had time to prepare and I’m sure that Joe Schmidt will have a few new ideas up his sleeve and try and overturn them again”.

Fekitoa claimed a try brace but was also yellow-carded for a high tackle on Simon Zebo.

“He comes from a small country called New Zealand and we know who he is and what he is capable of”, he said.

Five tries in IL ensured the Irish painted Soldier Field green, at the end of a week which had seen the Chicago Cubs baseball team end a 108-year wait to win the World Series. It would tarnish it if we didn’t get the right performance.

The performance drew admirative tweets from such diverse characters as author JK Rowling and USA vice-president Joe Biden as defeat stopped the All Blacks’ world record Test run of 18 successive wins in its tracks.

“You’d love to think that we’re favourites, wouldn’t you?”

“New Zealand came out, kept the ball well and we felt like we were getting off the line and getting the hits in, but they were getting one metre here, one there”, said Toner. They know we’re a good team and we can get in their face.

These players form the spine of the team and if they play to their potential then the All Blacks should have little trouble in exacting revenge on their hosts.

Schmidt, like Hansen a New Zealander, added however he wouldn’t advise the All Blacks coach to change jobs and become a bookmaker.

In his interview with RTE after the game, Hansen said he was anxious by the team’s penalty count, but was happy with the defence that saw Ireland fail to cross the tryline.

“As expected, there is huge excitement and anticipation within our squad ahead of this weekend’s Test against the Irish”, said All Blacks head coach Hansen.

“I don’t assess the referees, they have an assessor, so we’ll leave that to them”, Schmidt said.

“It is very similar to what we would get in a play-off game in the World Cup”.