Photo Courtesy of Radio NZ
108 years it took for Ireland to beat the All Blacks. 29 attempts. The All Blacks are undoubtedly one of the greatest sides we’ve put out, but on the day the Irish were superb. They would’ve beat anyone. They ran it, they tackled, they intimidated, they found that extra gear where there wasn’t one before. The scrum especially – the Irish showed that a bit of heart and some good technique can beat or hold a superior scrum. Some clever running showed up some defensive errors that more seasoned campaigners may not have made.
My argument this time is to say that the Irish hands down BEAT the All Blacks. This doesn’t happen too often. If the All Blacks lose they lose it more often than not rather than teams playing winning rugby. Take the Semi-Final at 1991 World Cup where the Aussies blew us off the park compared with in 2003 when the Poms didn’t play one minute of rugby and still managed to win. The Frogs ran us ragged and beat us half to death in Nantes in 1986 beating the young All Blacks compared with the Eden Park Test in 1994 where the men in black went to sleep and let Sadourny score in the final play. These are two examples of when we were outplayed let me give you some thoughts as to when we beat ourselves.
2003 World Cup Semi Final. The Aussies are cunning buggers and they were ready. Some interesting selections and a first five eighth who was grossly out of his depth under pressure meant we crumbled. Interestingly enough the Aussies let the Poms have it a week later. Again the Pomme de Terres didn’t play a lot of rugby and managed to win a couple of OBEs and a knighthood for serial foot-in-mouth Clive Woodhead, sorry Woodward. The Australians weren’t a better team – we beat ourselves, and the very clever Sterling Mortlock let us do it.
October 2nd, 2007 is a day that will live in infamy. The All Blacks playing in grey and the Frogs playing in some blue that they’ve never played in went to Cardiff to do battle. The All Blacks clearly the better side were undone by some really interesting refereeing – well let’s face it Barnes couldn’t referee his way out of a paper bag – and some stunning mental collapses meant the Frenchmen beat us by 2 despite being second best.
At the hand of the revolutionaries again in 1999 World Cup Semi, we went to sleep in the second half handing the game to them.
Not a test match, but Munster in 1978 when all the players said we were lucky to get nil. We didn’t show up.
When we lost to Sydney in 1992 – the All Blacks didn’t show up and let Sydney put 40 points on us.
I could go on but the crux of it is that what we watched on Sunday was a rugby team defy all odds and BEAT the best side in the world. They played magnificent rugby and for rugby lovers it was a thing of beauty (even though it hurts seeing a loss). The Irish team and their Kiwi Coach should be very proud of how they played rugby and weren’t caught up in the whinging shit that a former captain of theirs might have been spouting (O’Driscoll). Please keep this up – and for fucks sake hand the Poms their hearts when you’ve finished walloping them.
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