Ireland beat the All Blacks in Wellington to claim their first series win on New Zealand soil. Photo / Photosport
Ireland beat the All Blacks in Wellington to claim their first series win on New Zealand soil. Photo / Photosport
Ireland 32 All Blacks 22
OPINION:
The All Blacks simultaneously managed to show in losing the series decider to Ireland that they are a lot less broken than it appeared last week, but so too are they carrying so many issues and fundamental flaws as to be considered nowhere near fixed.
This is not a great or even a particularly good All Blacks side. The question now for New Zealand Rugby's board is to determine whether that can change without instigating some kind of change.
Is this side destined to wallow in its own deficiencies and befuddled thinking, or is there some way they can catapult themselves into a new, more compelling trajectory?
Beyond doubt now is that the All Blacks are clearly in a rut. They can't string together 80-minute performances and they don't seem to be able to kick-start themselves into action until they are looking at something desperate on the scoreboard.
Again, as they did in Dunedin, they showed heart, resilience and at times, a touch of enterprise and class. When they came right they were good. Really good – slick and inventive and they were clinical with their opportunities.
The optimists, the sort who have a gambler's instinct, will find enough in the good periods to believe that a breakthrough is coming. That with a bit of luck and a bit of fine tuning, this All Blacks team will be roaring along soon enough and no one will remember these last six tests.
But the realists, who shouldn't be confused with the pessimists, will fear there is too much wrong with this team to see a fix looming on the horizon. Not without some kind of change in coaching personnel – be it tinkering or wholesale because there are not a whole lot of new potential test players lurking in dark recesses.
All Blacks captain Sam Cane looks on during the third test against Ireland in Wellington. Photo / Getty Images
The All Blacks are an embattled crew, fragile in places where they can't be and just so volatile in terms of their ability to produce the basics as to leave no one confident about what they will get any given week or in any given 20-minute patch.
The performance in Wellington was considerably better than the one in Dunedin, but it still wasn't at the standard it needed to be, and the debate can't be focused on whether they are bad, or really bad.
The thing not to lose sight of is that the All Blacks lost and that is four of the last five tests now – which is categorically red flag territory.
The All Blacks can't be a patchy team. They can't have their lineout wobble the way it did, or concede two tries to the rolling maul. Nor can they miss as many first-up tackles as they did, because the errors don't offset the dominant hits they produced in abundance.
The All Blacks are now a little like the Ancient Mariner in that they can see problems, problems everywhere nor a solution anywhere to be had.
But in the rush to lampoon the All Blacks and dissect quite why they have slumped to such a misshapen, lump of a thing, it can't get lost that Ireland have been a major contributing factor to the problems suffered by the home side.
New Zealanders can get on with the serious business of lamenting their own failings and wave their pitching forks at whomever they need to, but to not first acknowledge the brilliance of Ireland would be churlish and ungracious.
Rieko Ioane in action during the All Blacks test against Ireland in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
It takes a brilliant team to win a test on these shores and one close to legendary to win a series and Ireland can rightfully take their place in history alongside some other magnificent visitors.
One 20-minute patch at Eden Park aside where they spoonfed the All Blacks a steady diet of turnover opportunities, they have been the smart and the slicker.
They have had all the good ideas, the tidier execution and the steadiness of nerve to believe in all that they do and for New Zealanders, this tour has at least given an opportunity to enjoy a high-quality rugby fix vicariously.
Ireland have played with the speed, vision and daring that the All Blacks used to, and currently want to, but simply don't have all the nuts and pieces to get it right.
They go home deserved winners – the dominant partners now in the relationship and hopefully some of what they brought will rub off on the All Blacks.
