All Blacks v Ireland - 1st Test

Lots to like about that performance. Senior players stood up when the team was under the pump, some great individual performances, game control was on another level from what we've seen since 2018, minimal errors across the park and pretty much everything done with precision and speed.

But the best thing for me may be they looked a team knowing what they needed to do to control the game and just got on with it with minimal errors. Kudos to Sam Cane - he deserves a lot of credit, led well and looked an oasis of calm control compared to POM who seemed to lose it. Sam had a great game as well.

Scrum went great had the wood on Ireland. Thought BBBR & SW were solid and paced their game well and the loosies seemed to combine well. AS was sheer class and the try he set up for Ardie deserves a highlights reel of its own.

Midfield was excellent. Best game in Black for Reiko for me - nothing flashy, but he led and owned the midfield with QT. His D on the try-line was on another planet. QT was really solid and he looked bloody calm under pressure.

LF went OK in his first Test - nothing spectacular but a good solid performance and set up a try by angling in at just the right time to suck in the defence. Can't ask anything more from debutante. Reece looked dangerous and his defence was pretty good too.

Jordie was good & solid but wasn't his greatest game for me. Ditto BB who had moments of brilliance but some of his kicking was a bit astray. Overall can't think of a below-average performance from any of the starting XV

Things to work on like exits and dumb kicking obviously, and Ireland will come back hard, but 7.5/10 for that performance.

canefan

We had to do far too much defence. A lot of that was self inflicted. As good as we played we need to cut down the error rate, definitely agree that our field kicking has to be much better

ACT Crusader

@canefan said in All Blacks v Ireland - 1st Test:

Just saw the replay of Ardie's try. The Irish defender was sweating on the outside pass, he totally made the correct call to run it in

It was an excellent decision. I thought he would pass it and we would fluff it, but sometimes it’s better to go yourself.

No Quarter

That's a good win in the end.

Ireland were really good for the first 15 or so mins of each half, then seemed to run out of puff a bit and we were very clinical capitalising on that. At home, and when they are fresher, they keep that intensity up for most of the match. So we still need to find a way to counter that; at times there they were making easy metres up the middle causing us all sorts of problems.

For us, I'd like to see us play a lot tighter to begin tests, the frantic play from the outset tends to put us under a lot of pressure when the opposition is fired up and laying into us. We need a game plan where we weather the storm effectively, then up the pace of the game when we think we can exploit them, instead if trying to play at a million miles an hour from the outset. Just need to be a bit smarter, when we click nobody can stay with us but it's hard for everything to click in the first 10 - 15 minutes.

Still though, hard to complain about that when it's the first test of the season, we should only improve from here on out.

No Quarter

@Machpants said in All Blacks v Ireland - 1st Test:

I think our big work on is Beaudy, and the other kickers. Exits and kicking for position

They really don't trust Mo'unga though do they, even when they sub him on they leave Beauden out there

Victor Meldrew

@canefan said in All Blacks v Ireland - 1st Test:

We had to do far too much defence. A lot of that was self inflicted. As good as we played we need to cut down the error rate, definitely agree that our field kicking has to be much better

Compared to recent performances, I though the error-rate was impressively low.

Victor Meldrew

@No-Quarter said in All Blacks v Ireland - 1st Test:

For us, I'd like to see us play a lot tighter to begin tests, the frantic play from the outset tends to out us under a lot of pressure when the opposition is fired up and laying into us.

Great point. It's almost as though they are hoping for a quick try or two to loosen the game up. Doesn't always come off...

gt12

@No-Quarter said in All Blacks v Ireland - 1st Test:

@Machpants said in All Blacks v Ireland - 1st Test:

I think our big work on is Beaudy, and the other kickers. Exits and kicking for position

They really don't trust Mo'unga though do they, even when they sub him on they leave Beauden out there

He and Barrett just don't look comfortable out there together do they?

Dmac and Barrett together looked much better when we saw it.

Would be hard to leave out Mo'unga on form, of course.

The Silver Fern

All Blacks v Ireland - 1st Test