Sam Cane and the All Blacks were outclass in the second test against Ireland. Photo / Getty
Sam Cane and the All Blacks were outclass in the second test against Ireland. Photo / Getty
OPINION:
It will forever be known as the disaster in Dunedin. From being heroic in the first test the All Blacks were catastrophic in the second, seemingly having placed whatever incendiary device they had used to blow up Ireland in Auckland last week under their own bonnet to inflict terminaldamage.
Ireland have their first win in New Zealand and goodness knows they deserve it, but even they would admit that for all that they huffed and puffed, they shouldn't have been able to blow the All Blacks house down as easily as they did.
If the All Blacks took one step forward last week, they took at least two if not three back in Dunedin and while their list of faults was long and comprehensive, the nuts and bolts of their demise could be summed up by saying they lacked physicality and imagination. The All Blacks were passive and insipid, saved from humiliation only by their miraculous scrambling defence which was brilliant.
But the All Blacks can't survive in the rarefied air of test rugby by spending most of the game on their own goal line and given their recidivist offending in the art of muscling up, it is now increasingly difficult to see how the coaching team can survive.
The All Blacks have been valued at $3.5bn and if they want to fulfil all their revenue growth ambitions and find the 60 million fans around the world that they say are waiting to invest in black, then they can't get smacked around on their home patch.
And it's not the mounting losses per se that is reducing faith in the coaching team, it's the definitive sense the team is not growing or building towards a defined game plan. Good one week, bad the next - that's not the narrative on which the legend has been built.
Last week they had an obvious plan. It was well considered and executed. But in Dunedin, there was nothing in the way of tactical innovation. It was as if the All Blacks played their only innovative card last week when they surprised everyone by hitting the third runner.
All we got in test two were some hopeful kicks that weren't good enough to be contestable and endless one-off runners not making much of an impact.
The harsh but unavoidable truth is that this All Blacks side needs a reset. Something is not right. The talent is there but the cohesion isn't.
The All Blacks were outclassed in the second test against Ireland. Photo / Getty
The heart and commitment they showed to stay in the fight was admirable, but depth of character and resilience are not enough on their own to win tests.
Something needs to change in the set-up, a fresh voice or a new face to inject something new and radical to rejuvenate a side that has world class players and can be world class on occasion, but a side that isn't consistent enough or dynamic enough to instil confidence. The problem with using the Big Bad Wolf analogy in relation to the house being blown down is that it casts Ireland as the eponymous character.
That's not how world rugby is supposed to work and the biggest danger for the game in this country is the All Blacks losing their ability to induce fear wherever they go in the world, and we are getting close to that point.
Certainly the All Blacks won't have any knees quivering in Dublin. Not now that the Irish have bagged the last of their golden ages – a win in New Zealand.
And not now that the nature of that victory was so comprehensive and no one can mount a compelling defence that New Zealand were hard done by the officials.
Having picked up two yellow cards and a red in the first half, discipline could be presented as the headline problem for the All Blacks.
The first yellow was maybe a little harsh, but if you leave your feet as Leicester Fainga'anuku did, referees are going to feel like getting a card out. Ofa Tuungafasi's card was just plain dumb, but the red was contentious.
No doubt it was a head collision, but whoever makes the rules and interprets them on the field, has to be aware that a 125kg prop such as Angus Ta'avao can't actually move direction at the speed the laws require.
There was a fair argument that it should have been red mitigated to a yellow but then referee Jaco Peyper may have recalled how in 2016 he failed to give Malakai Fekitoa a red card in Dublin – it was latterly applied by the citing commission – and so perhaps this was his way of squaring things up.
But discipline, or lack of, was a symptom rather than a cause of the All Blacks problems. They are a team that has lost its way. They can paper over cracks every now and again, but fundamentally the All Blacks need to turn themselves on at the wall, pull the plug out, wait the recommended minute and then reboot with updated software.
