All Blacks v Ireland: What the current All Blacks can learn from the 1987 Rugby World Cup quarter-final

OPINION

Way back in 1987, there was a watershed All Blacks training run ahead of the Rugby World Cup quarter-final against Scotland. The All Blacks were preparing to meet a Scotland team whose scrum was regarded as a weapon.

Assistant coach Alex Wyllie took the forwards in a legendary session at Rugby Park, Christchurch. Scotland, a more powerful rugby nation in those days, had a world-class front row of Iain “Bear” Milne, David Sole and hooker Colin Deans. Their game plan was based around the scrum. New Zealand’s set piece was regarded as no more than satisfactory.

Wyllie set about lifting the bar. He insisted on scrum after scrum, first against a scrum machine and then against a strong pack of Canterbury club players only too keen to take on the All Blacks. There were over 50 scrums – Sir John Kirwan, in his book published after the ‘87 World Cup, said there were 92, but that might have been youthful exaggeration. Wyllie kept them going past the point of endurance and into the red zone, prowling around the scrum, growling at them, correcting a bind here and there, growling some more.

When they’d finished, black and blue and complaining, there was more. The game has evolved massively since then, but one thing remains the same: winning the breakdowns and the collisions. Wyllie had the forwards slamming into each other at rucks and mauls. New flanker Michael Jones wheeled away at one point, bleeding from the nose. It was almost a three-hour session.

Wayne Shelford is brought down in the All Blacks quarter-final clash against Scotland at the 1987 Rugby World Cup. Photo / Photosport

In the quarter-final, won 30-3 by the All Blacks, the scrum de-fanged the Scots. Scottish frustration reached a stage where a forward delivered a swift piece of vigilante justice to the head of All Blacks hooker Sean Fitzpatrick in a scrum – imagine the outcry today. The legend of “Fitzy” had already begun, but this cemented it. He apparently shook his head, grinned at his attacker and said: “That all you got?”

I mention all this because, about three weeks ago, the All Blacks had what sounded like a similar session in Bordeaux, ahead of the game against Italy – the 96-0 victory was the All Blacks’ finest showing at this Cup so far. The training was said to have involved a lot of “commitment” (translation: the players’ intensity was such that they roughed each other up a lot).

It’s to be hoped they do it again before the Ireland clash – as they will need every bit of that intensity and accuracy. In a highly perceptive Herald column, 1987 skipper David Kirk said Ireland play like the All Blacks used to: “Rock-solid set piece, hard running, tackling and turnover-focused loose forwards, dominant first-five, mix-it-up style of play … playing the game at the right end of the field … Ireland and France have gone to where we were in 2015 and are doing it better than we did ... We have to match their set-piece discipline, accuracy at the breakdown and immaculate decision-making – and add our own continuity and pace.”

Yes, indeed, and I’d add matching the Irish at playing the referee and avoiding penalties – in the last 25 tests, the All Blacks have attracted nearly five times as many yellow and red cards than Ireland. Significant.

There’s another factor: defence. Several Irish commentators have talked about New Zealand’s “passive” defence (translation: not the rush defence employed by the Springboks and others). Part of that is the All Blacks’ philosophy, “the way we play” – you score 14 points, we’ll score 30; you score 20 points, we’ll score 45. While we must accept Ian Foster’s All Blacks will not change their style now, that doesn’t mean they can’t introduce some surprises.

Like a couple of set-piece moves they’ll have been holding back. I also wouldn’t mind betting Richie Mo’unga and Beauden Barrett will be practicing dropped goals this week. Maybe there’ll be more pick-and-go and driving play than the Irish are expecting; back-to-basics stuff with some quickfire innovations chucked in.

The All Blacks’ expansive, continuity game is harder to pull off when confronted with a powerful defence. Rugby today makes it harder to go wide when you have the ball – if there is a team of practiced ball burglars spread across the park, waiting. Ireland forwards Andrew Porter, Caelen Doris, Peter O’Mahony and Tadgh Beirne are world-class turnover specialists; the team as a whole is full of them.

In the backs, Ireland hasn’t really been challenged yet. Johnny Sexton is making light of his 38 years but hasn’t really been touched when doing those little loop moves. He can be pressured. Bundee Aki has a legitimate claim to being the best second-five in the world; Hugo Keenan is similarly world-class, but might not be in the game as much if the All Blacks don’t kick as much as they have been.

All of which is why the Irish are the favourites to win this and make it five out of the last seven against the All Blacks. All of which is why Fitzpatrick recently said the match against Ireland would come down to the All Blacks’ “big boys” stepping up and imposing their physicality on a highly physical opponent.

It’s a bit of a worry that props Tyrel Lomax and Ethan de Groot are respectively not quite right and returning from suspension but, regardless of who plays, it will likely come down to matching that intensity displayed at Rugby Park in 1987 and Bordeaux in 2023.

Paul Lewis has been a journalist since the last ice age. Sport has been a lifetime pleasure and part of a professional career during which he has written four books, and covered Rugby World Cups, America’s Cups, Olympic and Commonwealth Games and more.