The shambolic backstory to Ireland's heaviest ever Test defeat
How times change. Next Saturday a sell-out 51,000 crowd will assemble at Aviva Stadium confident Ireland can put one over the visiting New Zealand. Six years ago, though, no one of green persuasion ever wanted to catch sight of an All Blacks jersey again.
Hammerings and humiliations by Kiwi hands weren’t uncommon before that horrendously painful June 2012 Saturday in Hamilton.
A 6-59 thumping in Wellington 20 years earlier had ranked as Ireland’s worst ever Test defeat, closely followed by the 15-63 carnage of a November 1997 reverse in Dublin.
But even those drubbings couldn’t compare to the abomination of the 0-60 embarrassment where an obliterated Ireland left the field lucky to have gotten nil.
This was the professional age and the Irish were supposed to have consigned no-show annihilations to the past. Instead, Hamilton was GUBU – grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented.
The nightmare even contained a mind-boggling footnote two days later as Ireland incredibly moved up a place to seventh in that week’s World Rugby rankings because Argentina were beaten at home by France. Crazy.
What rankled most about Irish dire haplessness was how the previous weekend they had come within a whisker of scripting a very different history.
But for a dubious penalty decision against them at the scrum by referee Nigel Owens, Ireland, level in Christchurch coming down the finishing straight, could have claimed a first-ever victory over the All Blacks and avoided waiting until 2016 in Chicago to make this breakthrough.
Instead, New Zealand finished with a wobbly win-clinching Dan Carter drop goal and what followed drove a nail into the coffin of the Declan Kidney reign.
The Corkman was initially a canny motivator with the Midas touch, marvellously guiding Ireland to a first Grand Slam in 61 years during his first season. But his squad never really pushed on from that meteoric achievement to take their game and their strength in depth to another level.
Since negotiating 2009 unbeaten, Ireland were on the back foot with 15 defeats in 30 Test outings (14 wins and a draw). Non-Test defeats to the Barbarians (twice) and the Maori (once) further highlighted the lack of progress and with performances becoming far too hit-and-miss, the three-Test tour series in New Zealand marked the beginning of the end of IRFU’s patience with Kidney.
Nine months later he was gone, his employer fed up seeing the band-aid frequently applied to their costly national team regularly falling off.
The union wasn’t blameless. A coach-load of administrators from Dublin were present on the 2012 tour and they had unwittingly rubber-stamped the disastrous preparation that was to lead to what remains Ireland’s biggest ever Test rugby defeat.
Unlike now, where Joe Schmidt enjoys the freedom to call nearly all shots, Kidney had his hands tied in certain frustrating ways. For instance, there used to be a bizarre Friday meeting where he would have to explain the next day’s game plan to certain blazers. None of these ‘experts’, though, had reservations that Ireland’s week three preparations were a recipe for unprecedented disaster.
A bulling New Zealand couldn’t get to Hamilton quick enough, blaming poor preparations for their display in Christchurch and vowing there wouldn’t be a repeat. In contrast, Ireland based themselves for four nights in Queenstown before arriving n Hamilton late Thursday.
Going to New Zealand’s adventure capital prior to the start of the 2011 World Cup the previous September had been a decent decision. The fun element of that visit was a perfect fillip to help exorcise the demons of losing all August’s warm-up matches. Mentally, it put them into the right place to go on and win their World Cup pool.
However, visiting the famed holiday resort in the last week of a 51-week, 17-Test season was thoroughly ill-advised as the players were mentally not with it come Hamilton and performed as if still on the Queenstown piste.
It stung. “Last week and the week before going into the first two games we were using it [the long season] as a positive, that we were battle-hardened. It would be a bit rich after a stuffing like that if we turned around and used it as an excuse,” admitted Rory Best after the grotesque 0-60 trouncing which contained too many self-self-inflicted wounds.
Some rival New Zealand players openly admitted they couldn’t fathom Ireland’s R’n’R detour, an admonishment that prompted sniggering local newspaper headlines such as ‘Blarney Rubble’ once the Blackwash was complete.
Irish woe by the Waikato was further compounded by the unbelievable decision to call Paddy Wallace in from a beach holiday in Portugal to start in Hamilton.
Rather than revert to the first-Test midfield of Keith Earls paired inside with Brian O’Driscoll after Gordon D’Arcy pulled up lame after Christchurch, Kidney backed a jet-lagged Wallace to somehow put three days travelling and a lack of training behind him.
The selection sparked carnage. Sonny Bill Williams, Wallace’s opposite number, was unplayable, grabbing two of the opening four tries and giving the assist for another early score on a night where New Zealand enjoyed 16 clean breaks to Ireland’s three, beat 32 defenders to 13 and managed 21 offloads to four.
Ireland also missed a whopping 32 tackles, a malaise that spread right through their ill-prepared team. Of the entire starting XV, only Conor Murray didn’t miss a tackle. Wallace missed four, was hooked on 54 minutes with the scoreline reading 0-41 and he was never capped again. Ouch.
Nine tries were leaked by close of business, Ireland’s demise not helped by a perplexing Rob Kearney sin-binning, and the hiding put a few cock-of-the-walk personnel firmly in their place.
One player had taken umbrage post-Christchurch at Irish media criticism of aspects of his play and made his displeasure known from Queenstown. His silence following the disaster in Hamilton was telling.
Also, a certain member of the coaching staff could have done with a reality check given his quip about the musty condition of his Hamilton hotel room blankets just hours before Ireland took on the Kiwis for the third and final time.
That cheap dig spectacularly backfired and this alleged dust instead settled uncomfortably elsewhere, Kidney asked seconds into his awkward post-match media conference if he would be resigning despite having a year to run on his IRFU deal.
He came out swinging. “It’s hugely disappointing, embarrassing, all the words you want to use. We won’t hide from it [the level of anger in Ireland]. We were hammered and it’s unacceptable… you don’t get into it [coaching] for games like this.”
Sympathy was in short supply. “Do I have sympathy for them? I’m not sure… but I can imagine what it feels like and it won’t be pretty,” said Steve Hansen, the Kiwi boss who had known from his Wales days what it was like to get destroyed by the All Blacks.
“Test rugby is about getting yourself mentally and physically in the right place to really perform, which they did in Christchurch and clearly couldn’t get back there for Hamilton. There will be some rocks under their tails and it hopefully stimulates them to be a better side.”
It did – but only after the more meticulous Schmidt took over. Changed times, indeed.
Comments on RugbyPass
I bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
19 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
7 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
19 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
9 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
9 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
28 Go to commentsYawn 🥱 nobody would give a hoot about this new trophy. End of the day we just have to beat Ireland and NZ this year then they can finally shut up 🤐
19 Go to commentsTalking bout Ryan Crotty? Heard Crotty say in a interview once that SBW doesen't care about the team . He went on to say that whenever they lost a big game, SBW would be happy as if nothing happened, according to him someone who cares would look down.. Personally I think Crotty is in the wrong, not for feeling gutted but for expecting others 2 be like him… I have been a bad loser forever as it matters so much to me but good on you SBW for being able to see the bigger picture….
28 Go to commentsThis sounds like a WWE idea so Americans can also get excited about rugby, RUGBY NEEDS A INTERNATIONAL CALENDER .. The rugby Championship and Six Nations can be held at same time, top 3 of six nations and top 3 of Rugby championship (6 nations should include Georgia AND another qualifying country while Fiji, Japan and Samoa/Tonga qualifier should make out 6 Southern teams).. Scrap June internationals and year end tours. Have a Elite top six Cup and the Bottom 6 in a secondary comp….
19 Go to commentsThe rugby championship would be even stronger with Fiji in it… I know it doesen’t fit the long term plans of NZ or Aus but you are robbing a whole nation of being able to see their best players play for Fiji…. Every second player in NZ and AUS teams has Fijian surnames… shame on you!!! World rugby won’t step in either as France and England has now also joined in…. I guess where money is involved it will always be the poor countries missing out….
90 Go to commentsNo surprise there. How hard can it be to pick a ball off the ground and chuck it to a mate? 😂
4 Go to commentsSometimes people just like a moan mate!
9 Go to commentsexcellent idea ! rugby needs this 💪
19 Go to comments