All Blacks v Ireland: Injury toll sets platforms for young guns to shine – Gregor Paul

Leicester Fainga'anuku and Wallace Sititi celebrate in the win over Ireland. Photo / Photosport

THE FACTS

• The All Blacks claimed a 26-13 victory over Ireland in Chicago.
• Scott Robertson’s men avenged the historic 2016 loss at the same venue.
• Rookie lock Fabian Holland was named man of the match, as one of several standout youngsters.

The rematch brought the All Blacks revenge, but also an unexpected but hugely welcome wave of optimism that they have in their midst a cohort of inexperienced youngsters with the potential to regenerate the national team.

A game that felt like it was tantalisingly close, but just creeping out of reach from the All Blacks midway through the second half, finished with no one in any doubt that New Zealand were the emphatic winners – in ways much more significant than the score suggested.

The All Blacks tapped into something powerful and compelling in the final quarter. The stilted and uncertain attack that plagued them for 55 minutes burst out of the cocoon – and suddenly the men in black were butterflies.

They were calm, clinical, mature and laced with power, precision and no shortage of imagination.

For the first time in the Scott Robertson era, there was a sense of the All Blacks not being inhibited or exclusively wedded to a heavily prescribed pattern, and instead they abandoned order to operate with a free spirit and grant themselves a licence to riff as they saw fit.

And maybe that was because circumstances – a never-ending injury toll – meant the All Blacks were forced to field a legion of young athletes led by Fabian Holland, Wallace Sititi, Tamaiti Williams, Peter Lakai and Leicester Fanga’anuku, who played with a freedom and fearlessness that sometimes accompanies youth.

From looking a bit nervous and beset by inaccuracy, they spent the last 20 minutes bombing about, blasting through tackles, offloading out of contact and looking every inch the sort of dynamic, expressive footballers upon which the All Blacks’ legend is built.

Holland and his equally junior locking partner Josh Lord were heroically good.

The former knows that his job is to grind every last bit of energy out of himself, and for a bloke who grew up in a country where rugby barely registers, he’s got an incredibly astute take on what head-down, bum-up means.

The latter produced a wily shift at the lineout and demonstrated why two different All Blacks coaching regimes have been so keen on him.

Lord, who came on after barely two minutes due to an injury to captain Scott Barrett, was a massive source of irritation to the Irish lineout, who resorted to the sort of advanced and prolonged choreography that always signals a team is not confident about how to win their own ball.

“Lordy was straight into calling the lineout and he backed himself a couple of times and he got picked off in a couple, but he trusted himself and he picked a few off them,” Robertson said.

“He can clean out rucks, he’s six foot nine and learning quickly, so pleased for them both, and great engines, both getting better at their craft.”

The lineout was a profitable area for the All Blacks, but it was the scrum where the biggest returns flowed.

It was the arrival of Williams early in the second half that changed the dynamic of the contest from one that was fairly even to one in which Ireland were either penalised or under so much pressure that they should have been.

But while the set piece was the foundation on which the victory was built, the most valuable currency the All Blacks had was poise and belief to weather a nervy and wobbly period after halftime where their discipline was ragged, the temperament poor and execution sloppy.

There was a danger that the All Blacks were going to drift out the game – hampered by their own frustration, which saw them penalised for talking back to the referee, lazy defensive positioning and poor scrum engagement.

It looked like they might be swamped by their own tidal wave of frustration, only for the metamorphosis to occur and the red heads to turn blue.

The last 20 minutes were the All Blacks as everyone wants them to be – innovative, direct, skilful and dynamic.

Sititi and Lakai carried supremely well and Fainga’anuku was destructive every time he touched the ball, but, critically, with soft hands too.

The continuity was too much for Ireland, and the puppet master pulling all the strings – Beauden Barrett – was too assured and canny to waste the opportunity the youngsters around him created.

His ability to keep things simple, accurate and on track was critical to orchestrating the flow, and while he may not be the same player he was nine years ago when the All Blacks were last in Chicago, he is exactly what the current team needs in the No 10 jersey.

Having tapped into quite the rich vein of expressionism, the confidence will have soared within the team that they can play the ball-in-hand, fluid rugby they aspire to, but some words of caution are required as the Irish, the highest-ranked of the Home Unions the All Blacks will face on tour, looked a little frayed and devoid of energy and good ideas, and tougher challenges await in the UK.

Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.