All Blacks players dejected after their loss to Ireland. Photo / Photosport
All Blacks players dejected after their loss to Ireland. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
Everyone seems to love reality makeover shows these days, the sort where a rundown cottage gets a few new kitchen cabinets, a spattering of market stall art and transforms itself into a property to die for.
There are other shows where recent divorcees kick the takeaway for a week,buy a new shirt and shoes and start talking about how the process has been life-changing.
Having lost to Ireland and with one test left in 2021, the All Blacks are going to have to enter the reality makeover world this week and give themselves the metaphoric lick of paint by making a handful of personnel changes.
Dane Coles looks ready to replace a tired Codie Taylor who is tiring down the home stretch after a strong start to the season.
Ethan Blackadder has had a storming year but it might be time for him to have a rest, hand his number six jersey to Dalton Papalii and introduce Sam Cane at openside.
Aaron Smith hasn't played a test since August and only arrived in Europe late last week, but the case to pick him is much stronger than to not.
Beauden Barrett is an unlikely starter having failed his Head Injury Assessment in Ireland and a serious injury to Anton Lienert-Brown has ruled him out, paving the way for the All Blacks to see if Quinn Tupaea can solve what is quite the problem position at No 12.
The injection of fresh legs will be one part of the makeover and the other will come in the form of an intensified focus on the basics.
All Blacks players dejected after their loss to Ireland. Photo / Photosport
The All Blacks were forced to make 238 tackles in Dublin because they couldn't hold on to the ball.
As Ian Foster said on arrival in Paris, the All Blacks backs, as they did against South Africa, consistently lost possession after one phase or sometimes two and in doing so, accentuated the sense that the pack were being dealt to by a more physical and determined Irish outfit.
He's right to argue his point that the All Blacks can't build continuity or any kind of dominance if they keep giving the ball back as soon as they have it.
With a bit of rage in the system, the All Blacks should bounce back this week in Paris, look after the ball better, play on the front foot and finish their season off with a victory or at least a more convincing performance.
The makeover will appear as if it was as transformational as the divorcee's new shirt and the All Blacks could cruise into 2022 with renewed confidence that they are building their game to be more effective against a wider range of opposition.
But whatever happens in Paris, there is now a creeping sense that the All Blacks need more than a reality TV-style makeover and something closer to a fundamental reboot.
Too many core parts of their game have failed under pressure in the last four years and while the All Blacks can unquestionably play better rugby than they did in Dublin, it's hard not to wonder whether Ireland have built the greater level of intelligence and the broader skill-sets and are leaving New Zealand behind.
Ireland's Jack Conan in action against Akira Ioane of the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport
The Irish played with variation and subtlety, working off a foundation laid by a pack that looked as comfortable playing the piano as they did shifting it.
A decade ago it was New Zealand who had the world in awe with their ball-playing forwards who could also slug it out at the coalface, but now it is Ireland who are spitting out hybrid wonders such as Andrew Porter, James Ryan and Ian Henderson.
Individually, the All Blacks have a backline that is the envy of the world, but how often have they produced sweeping, flowing movements the way Ireland did – using their collective timing and understanding of the wider game plan to shorten up New Zealand's defence as often as they did?
New Zealand remain the masters of instinctive, unstructured rugby but the likes of Ireland, South Africa and England need to be systematically broken down to create the chaotic world in which the All Blacks thrive.
Again, a decade ago, it wasn't so hard for these teams to be unpicked, for their forwards to run out of gas, their defences blown away by a few phases of continuity and the All Blacks left to roam free.
But these days it takes a sophisticated strategy to crack the Irish – one built on profoundly innovative thinking, supreme discipline, accuracy and old-fashioned horsepower.
Maybe a cheap and cheerful makeover is indeed all the All Blacks need in their quest to rediscover this lost art of breaking the best teams down and succeeding at attrition rugby.
But that feels more like wishful thinking or even blind optimism.
There is a weight of evidence building that the All Blacks need to reinvent themselves to some degree because the best in the world have worked them out.
It was all too easy for Ireland to negate New Zealand's attacking potency and a quick makeover might be good enough to net a victory this week in Paris, but it's doubtful whether it will be a strong enough fix to enable the All Blacks to win the World Cup in 2023.
