Ireland, probably to their chagrin, have found themselves to be the common denominator in the respective All Blacks coaching regimes of Ian Foster and Scott Robertson.
It was against Ireland at the 2023 World Cup that the All Blacks produced their best performance of Foster’s tenure, and it was against Ireland last week at the Aviva that the All Blacks produced their best performance of the Robertson era so far.
Foster’s regime only had two more Tests after that victory in Paris last year, not quite managing to push on to win the World Cup.
But Robertson has another three years to run on his contract and the fascination now will be seeing what sort of trajectory his All Blacks follow now that they have toppled what was at the time, the world’s best side.
It certainly felt like a breakthrough performance for the All Blacks. After a season in which they have been erratic and volatile – scraping through three close encounters with England, blowing two golden opportunities to beat South Africa after leading them for 60 minutes and almost spectacularly imploding against Australia in Sydney, the All Blacks of 2024 have been impossible to gauge.
They weren’t delivering enough grunt in the scrum, accuracy at the lineout, domination at the collisions, or enough balance in their game management to be confident they were tracking in the right direction through their first 10 Tests of the year.
But now their season has taken on a different hue altogether, following a convincing win against Australia, then a gritty performance against England at Twickenham and now a genuinely impressive victory against Ireland.
The Irish game was the one, though, that has forced a re-think about the All Blacks as it came with precisely the right amount of physical punch and strategic smarts to generate confidence that the players and coaching staff are now in tune with one another.
It clearly wasn’t a great night for Ireland, but only some of their attacking woes can be attributed to their own confusion and inaccuracy.
It would be over-egging the pudding to call it a masterclass, but it was easily the most astute performance the All Blacks have produced in 2024, and arguably the first time this year they have had almost every part of their game working.
Many of their issues related to the quality of the All Blacks defence, the power of their scrum, timing of their defensive lineout, the quality of their kicking game and the way it was so neatly balanced around their pass and run.
It would be over-egging the pudding to call it a masterclass, but it was easily the most astute performance the All Blacks have produced in 2024, and arguably the first time this year they have had almost every part of their game working at or close to its best.
They had to think their way out of trouble as much as they had to fight and it was the calm and methodical way that they weathered an early second half storm which saw them go 13-12 behind, to 23-13 ahead in a 20-minute spell, that marked a new beginning for this team.
There was nothing opportunistic or lucky about the way they broke Ireland down. They delivered intelligent, well managed rugby and it was, perhaps surprisingly, Damian McKenzie who was the architect of it all.
Surprisingly because McKenzie has battled all year to get his game management right, to the extent he was effectively dropped at the end of the Rugby Championship.
He only started in Dublin because Beauden Barrett was recovering from concussion, but the little Chiefs maestro, with the pressure at its most intense, used the intensity of the occasion to deliver his most impressive performance in the All Blacks No 10 jersey.
“I think we are building really nicely as a team and it is not really about proving a point or making a statement, it was just about playing our best rugby and there were patches there where we saw that,” McKenzie said.
“In test matches you have got to win the -wee moments, and we were able to do that.
The All Blacks look like an infinitely better team now than they did in July. Beating the world number one team on their home patch, a week after they beat England at Twickenham has put the All Blacks on a five-game winning streak.
“The way we played in the first half was great we managed to put the ball in front of our forwards and they were able to build some great momentum for us.
“There have been times throughout the year when my game management has been a massive work on.
“Tonight it was about trying to win the small moments and to make the job as easy as possible for our forwards. And you do that by winning the kicking battle and that was a big focus this week.
“I did a better job tonight, still got a lot to learn, but happy with the way it worked out.”
And this is why the All Blacks look like an infinitely better team now than they did in July. Beating the world number one team on their home patch, a week after they beat England at Twickenham has put the All Blacks on a five-game winning streak and it’s apparent that their confidence in themselves and in what they are doing is growing.
“Last week we found a way, and I think it gave us a lot of confidence, it could have gone either way, winning can be whatever it looks like in every test, you just have to win, and you have got to enjoy them and enjoy that moment,” All Blacks assistant coach Jason Ryan said after the win in Dublin.
“I know it gave us a lot of confidence that we found a way, and then we just hit this week humming we were really clear and what we needed to do and how we wanted to play, Scooter [Scott Barrett] is doing a great job of driving the boys around the park.”
Looking back to where they were when they played their first Test against England, to where they are now in the wake of beating Ireland 11 games later, they are almost unrecognisable.
The key differences being the depth of personnel they can now call upon. They have enough depth at prop that last year’s number one loose-head, Ethan de Groot, can’t win a start at the moment.
Asafo Aumua’s performance in Dublin was of such quality and resilience to suggest the All Blacks have three high quality hookers in him, Codie Taylor and the injured Samisoni Taukei’aho.
Asafo Aumua’s performance in Dublin was of such quality and resilience to suggest the All Blacks have three high quality hookers in him, Codie Taylor and the injured Samisoni Taukei’aho.
They now have two genuine options at No 10 in McKenzie and Barrett, while the individual improvement of younger players such as Aumua, Tamaiti Williams, Tupou Vai’i, Wallace Sititi and Caleb Clarke has given the match day 23 more punch.
That depth of personnel has also meant that the All Blacks at last have a high-impact bench to utilise – something that was important in surging past England and Ireland later in the game.
“I think it’s fair to say probably at the start of the season it [bench] wasn’t probably quite where we were at,” Ryan said.
“We have a bit more experience back, Patrick Tuipulotu has been unreal, Ofa [Tu’ungafasi] off the bench has been just an absolute champion, and we’ve got young boys that have added some pop.”
How much perception has changed in the last month can be seen in the way the All Blacks have probably become favourites to win their next match against France in Paris.
Before the team set off from New Zealand, there were many predicting – and not without cause either – that the All Blacks could be facing France on the back of consecutive losses, their season barely hanging by a thread and Robertson under all sorts of pressure.
But just as beating Ireland in 2023 changed the perception of Foster so too has it build a level of excitement and optimism about Robertson and the ability of this All Blacks team to reclaim the world number one spot.
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