Despite not being world champions, Ireland have a stronger claim than South Africa to be considered the game’s ultimate force – the most consistent, innovative and resilient team on the planet.
They rarely play poorly these days, they seem to be growing their talent on trees and for an island with a long and divided history, there is an all-powerful unity and cohesion about their rugby.
Their win ratio of 77% since 2020 is the best of any team in the world and to make life harder for the All Blacks, Ireland are keen to punch them in the face after what happened at last year’s World Cup.
It wasn’t just that the All Blacks smashed their World Cup dream in Paris, they kind of danced on their grave a little bit when Rieko Ioane sent the legendary Johnny Sexton into retirement with a mouthful of venom and Brodie Retallick informed Peter O’Mahony that he didn’t think the Irish flanker was an intellectual giant and needed help counting the years until the next World Cup.
But really, Ireland just want to use this match to reassert their dominance – to show that they have picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and bounced back stronger now than they were then.
And this is why the pressure is so firmly on Robertson’s shoulders this week.
A year ago, the All Blacks demonstrated that while they were maybe not the better team per se, they were the better team on the night after producing a performance that showed a depth of resilience, resourcefulness and innovation, and was a victory as much for the coaching team as it was the players.
Having been pulled apart by Ireland in July 2022 in a series where the All Blacks were exposed for defending with outdated structures, having a fragile maul defence and lacking the attack skills to retain possession, they pieced together all their broken parts to out-think, out-fox and outplay their vaunted opponent.
It was a performance built on deep planning, attention to detail and the confidence instilled by a coaching group the players trusted.
Inevitably, this creates a framework to judge Robertson’s All Blacks. To not put too fine a point on it – Ian Foster’s All Blacks were smart enough and good enough to beat Ireland, but will Robertson’s be?
This is the day of reckoning for the new coaching group – a game in which they can provide a definitive answer as to where they are taking this team, and justify their employer’s decision to run a process that effectively jettisoned the previous regime.
And there are specific areas in which it feels Robertson’s side have fallen behind – namely their ability to destructively scrummage.
A year ago, the All Blacks squeezed four scrum penalties out of Ireland and despite losing Codie Taylor to injury and opting to leave Ethan de Groot out of the match-day 23 – a decision said to be based on form rather than any lingering issues with his failure to meet internal standards – Robertson is holding a strong enough hand to make performance comparisons valid.
He’s got four of the pack who started in Paris, and another, Tamaiti Williams, who came off the bench, and therefore there is a fair basis to assess an All Blacks scrum that enjoyed dominance a year ago.
To date, the All Blacks have been a little underwhelming at scrum time in 2024 – never quite managing to pressure teams the way they were at times last year, a point Robertson himself concedes.
“At times,” Robertson said when he was asked whether he felt the scrum had delivered to expectation this year.
“Probably we would have liked to have eked out a few more penalties and have used it a bit more as a weapon. We have put a lot of time into that and would have liked a little bit more reward.
“Probably how teams have scrummaged against us. We could have adapted a wee bit better and probably adapted to the ref as well a couple of times.
“We have showed some really good pictures – I am not saying we haven’t – but we probably could have got a couple more penalty advantages out of it.”
But the pressure is also on for this team to show they can close down Ireland’s attack as effectively as they did last year and generate space and time with the same regularity that enabled three memorable tries to be scored in 2023.
All season there has been a sense that a good rugby team is waiting to breakout, but is being suffocated by a lack of discipline and accuracy, and perhaps too, just a little uncertainty in adjusting to the new coaching group.
Robertson has thrown the play-making keys to Damian McKenzie as expected, resisted the urge to recall Cam Roigard and again, there’s enough continuity of personnel in the backs to be thinking this is the game that the All Blacks need to produce their most fluid and cohesive attack performance, not just so they can withstand comparisons with Foster’s team, but because they will have to if they are to have any chance of beating Ireland.
“I think it is right up there with the Springboks in Jo’burg,” Robertson said of the scale of the challenge of playing Ireland in Dublin.
“The team is at the top of their game. It’s a full house, we are away from home, there is a ferocious history, especially now, she is right up there.”
All Blacks v Ireland, Saturday 9.10am
Live commentary on Newstalk ZB, Gold Sport and iHeartRadio. Live match blog at nzherald.co.nz.
