The All Blacks overcame a poor first half to defeat Ireland 26-13 in Chicago.
Leicester Fainga’anuku and Quin Tuapaea impressed in the midfield, with Wallace Satiti scoring a key try.
Ardie Savea’s leadership was pivotal after Scott Barrett’s injury, inspiring the team’s second-half performance.
That flapping noise you may have heard during the 55 interminable minutes it took to play the first half of the All Blacks-Ireland test in Chicago was the sound of the vultures circling.
Thankfully, the All Blacks snapped to it in the second half and ultimately came awaywith a well-deserved 26-13 victory margin. If the game had staggered on in the mediocre way it began, and the All Blacks had either scraped home, or – heaven forbid – lost, the backlash doesn’t bear thinking about.
The expectations of Kiwi rugby fans have always been high, to the point of brutality, and it’s been pretty grim watching the sort of shellacking that Ian Foster copped being transferred to Scott Robertson and his team. Put it down to the fact Robertson is a very different person to our usual phlegmatic All Blacks coach, possibly mixed with a dash of Crusaders jealousy.
A successful Grand Slam tour will not calm every critic. But the upheavals if the All Blacks had stumbled at the first hurdle of their northern tour would have made the uproar after, for example, the thrashing by South Africa in Wellington, look like gentle murmurings.
Here are five talking points from the test in Chicago.
The worst advertisement
In six decades on press benches at test matches, I guess I must have seen a worst first half somewhere ... but I genuinely can’t remember one.
It would be easy to blame the disjointed, tedious exercise on French referee Pierre Brousset, who looked so far out of his depth, you almost felt sorry for him. The people to blame were actually the incompetents who appointed such an inexperienced ref to a game that was supposed to be an advertisement for rugby in the United States.
It didn’t help that neither New Zealand nor Ireland were playing error-free rugby. When you add dropped passes and mediocre lineout throwing, from both sides, to jittery and time-consuming officiating – with Brousset seemingly under the thumb of his Television Match Officials (TMOs) – the result is hardly likely to persuade many Americans to flock to more rugby games.
The All Blacks perform their haka before Sunday's test against Ireland in Chicago. Photo / SmartFrame
Any bright side to life
For the All Blacks, there was one huge positive. Out of the adversity of injuries to captain Scott Barrett and midfield director Jordie Barrett, some men whose roles had been largely confined to the training track really stepped up.
Leicester Fainga’anuku’s return to join Quinn Tupaea in the midfield gave the team the most dangerous-looking midfield we’ve seen in the black jersey in 2025. The combination of strength and abrasiveness was deeply impressive and it would be fascinating if they were paired again against Scotland next weekend.
It was a joy to see Wallace Sititi displaying the flair, and, as he raced for a 66th-minute try, the blistering speed that made him the World Breakthrough Player of the Year last year.
Top marks also to Josh Lord, who stepped in for injured All Blacks captain Scott Barrett as a replacement lock after just three minutes. Lord is only 24, which means he still has his prime years ahead of him. It helps that he’s the same height as the great Sam Whitelock and appears to bring a similar work ethic to his game.
Men of the match
First, a round of applause for Ardie Savea, who took over the captaincy when Scott Barrett was injured. As with Moana Pasifika in Super Rugby Pacific, Savea was inspirational in Chicago, and his tackle-busting energy came at exactly the right time, when the All Blacks were seizing victory in the second half.
At the other end of the experience ledger, Fabian Holland had another outstanding game. What’s remarkable about Holland is that, considering he wasn’t playing rugby from the time he was a small child (unlike his teammates), the techniques he has learned are impeccable. You can go to the bank on the fact that if Holland goes into a tackle on attack, he will land on the ground in a position that makes the ball available to his halfback.
Confidence game
Confidence has always been a key element in the best All Blacks sides. “The buggers always believe they’re going to win,” a despairing Wallaby once said. The current All Blacks team, if they’re to win the next World Cup in 2027, need to have that belief.
A Grand Slam tour wouldn’t be the answer to everything, but it’d be an infinitely better start than limping through the next three games after a loss.
Cam Roigard scored for the All Blacks against Ireland in Chicago. Photo / Photosport
What about England?
England’s 25-7 defeat of Australia was impressive. But if the All Blacks can find the edge they eventually did against Ireland, they should be able to get the better of England in a fortnight at Twickenham. The Australian scrum easily handled England’s eight, and the main danger for the All Blacks will be combating England’s rolling mauls.
It would help too if England are refereed rather more strictly then they were against Australia. The Georgian referee Nika Amashukeli seemed to regard the English jerseys as also being magic cloaks of invisibility.
Too often it wasn’t so much the English rush defence, as the English offside defence.
Phil Gifford is a Contributing Sports Writer for NZME. He is one of the most-respected voices in New Zealand sports journalism.
