Ireland players singing their national anthem. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
OPINION:
Confirmation the border is re-opening means Ireland are definitely coming in July to find out whether they have surpassed the All Blacks as the game's best thinkers and innovators.
The three-test series will have a deeper narrative because Ireland are on such a sustained surge that they are threatening to create a new world order and potentially become the new All Blacks.
The world has been transfixed by the old All Blacks all these years, convinced that New Zealand is the game's most prolific incubator of talent and producer of good ideas, but maybe now we are at a tipping point where Ireland are about to take that crown.
What's at stake in this coming series is the All Blacks' global reputation as the pluckiest, bravest, most resilient little rugby nation.
Is it Ireland or New Zealand who the rest of the world is following, wondering how on earth they achieve so much with so little?
For the better part of the last 100 years it's never been a question worth asking. The answer has always been New Zealand.
The All Blacks have had a price tag of $3.5bn slapped on them because, for an eternity, they have been the team that has best adapted their game and built a global reputation for excellence.
Innovation defines their history and such has been the ability of the All Blacks to stay ahead of everyone else, to keep refining and advancing their collective skill-sets and rugby intelligence, that no one disputes New Zealand's right to call itself the spiritual home of rugby.
New Zealand is to rugby what Silicon Valley is to technology and there has been a global appreciation that what comes out of the South Pacific is generally superior – better programmed and better equipped.
But much has changed in the 10 years since Ireland were last in New Zealand and faced the world champion All Blacks and lost three times.
Ireland have proven to be not just an economic Celtic Tiger, but a rugby one, too.
They suffered a record defeat in the third test of 2012 when the All Blacks produced an epic display of power, pace and precision – factors that would be integral to their game for much of the next six years.
When the All Blacks retained the World Cup in 2015, a tournament that would see Ireland once again underachieve and crash out in the quarter-final to Argentina, there was a sense the gap between the two nations was widening.
New Zealand's right to call itself the toughest little big guy in world rugby was indisputable: 20 years into the professional age and New Zealand were still the undisputed masters at producing smart, resourceful, ruthless and creative rugby players.
What wasn't widely appreciated, however, when Richie McCaw lifted the Webb Ellis trophy at Twickenham seven years ago is that the tectonic plates had shifted.
Not much, but enough to alter the respective trajectories of the two nations. The All Blacks continued to mostly win after 2015, to convince as the game's most dominant force but imperceptibly the ecosystem around them was eroding.
Super Rugby bloated to 18 teams in 2016 and sucked just that little bit too much physical and mental energy out of the players.
It broke little bits of them and created the first hint that some were starting to see a season as something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
The coaching network lost access to heavyweight performers such as Jamie Joseph, Wayne Smith, Dave Rennie and for a period, Tony Brown.
Financial pressure began to bite harder than it previously had and a greater volume of compromise deals had to be struck to keep players here: agreements that benefited individuals financially but did little for their rugby progression.
New Zealand hasn't seen the total value of its accumulated rugby capital plummet in the last decade, but it hasn't grown either, or not at the same rate as Ireland's.
In the 10 years since the Irish were last in New Zealand, they have beaten the All Blacks three times.
They have won the Six Nations three times, claimed a Grand Slam and a series win in Australia.
But the results don't tell the full story of Ireland's rugby renaissance.
Ireland has become a magnet for ambitious and talented coaches. Joe Schmidt, Andy Farrell, Rassie Erasmus and Stuart Lancaster have been through the Irish system in the last 10 years and are better and wiser for their time there.
What better tribute to the collective coaching excellence in Ireland than the respective performances of two New Zealanders, James Lowe and Jamison Gibson-Park against England last weekend?
Those two, unwanted in New Zealand and discarded as coal, have been buffed up and squeezed into diamonds by Ireland.
They were world class against England and that's the magic of their system – it's making good players better and Ireland's elite aren't negotiating ways to escape the way New Zealand's are.
The Irish diaspora are scrambling to come home, aided by what appears to be a stronger and deeper relationship between the national union and the Government with an agreement in place which allows players to claim back the tax on their last contract if they retire in Ireland.
Ireland's rugby system has grown stronger in the last decade and many people now would see them and not New Zealand as the nation producing the more rounded players and working the most innovative gameplans.
It's Ireland seemingly where good rugby players now grow on trees. It is Ireland where the best rugby brains are operating, where the most ambitious are heading.
It is Ireland which appears to be innovating quicker and more effectively than the chasing pack and Ireland who are now staying one step ahead.
New Zealand has a long history of excellence, but right now it's not clear if they are keeping pace with Ireland who seem to be advancing their style of rugby every time they play.
In Ireland they increasingly have answers whereas in New Zealand there are a growing number of questions.
The series in July carries deep significance for both nations because it will provide a better indication whether New Zealand has the ability within its network to bounce back from a few difficult years and reconfirm its position as rugby's smartest operator.
The goal won't just be to win the series, it will be to re-establish that the All Blacks are the owners of the sport's largest pot of intellectual capital.
The former Manly Sea Eagles centre has copped a five-game suspension after the hit.