'Publicly I said I didn't care': Ian Foster reveals revenge motivation in Ireland quarter-final

Former All Blacks head coach Ian Foster has revealed that his preferred quarter-final opponent at last year’s Rugby World Cup was in fact Ireland.

With the Rugby World Cup draw putting the top four sides on the same side of the draw, it was known for a long time that the All Blacks would meet either South Africa, Ireland or Scotland in a high stakes quarter-final.

The 2022 series defeat to Ireland which put heavy scrutiny on the All Blacks and the head coach himself built up a well of emotion for the squad, which led to a motivation to pay Ireland back for the hurt.

Foster admitted that “deep down” he wanted the Ireland match-up as the squad took a vengeful mindset towards the game.

“I wanted to play Ireland,” Foster said on All Blacks: In Their Own Words 2.

“I was always asked who I wanted to play [Ireland or South Africa], and publicly I said I didn’t care. But deep down, I wanted to play Ireland [in the quarter-final].

“I think the public were nervous, I think they were smart enough to know what the quarter-final was going to be like.”

In a pre-match All Blacks leadership meeting before the quarter-final, halfback Aaron Smith revealed to the group that he had been “waiting 18 months” to play this team on the big stage to pay them back.

“We’d planned all year on how we could stop Ireland the best we could,” Smith said.

“The Irish were very confident, you could tell, but they had every right to be.”

Ireland entered the game on a 17 game winning streak and held the number one world ranking at time.

Captain Sam Cane, who also came under immense scrutiny following the 2-1 series defeat, shared how he felt about Ireland.

“Although we don’t talk about these things as a team, we don’t talk about Ireland, in the back of your mind, you remember it,” Cane said.

“We remember the feeling of losing in Dunedin, in Wellington, you remember those feelings. We’ve let New Zealand down, we’ve let the jersey down.”