Schmidt’s Ireland sense All Blacks scalp as world’s best brace for collision

It is not every day that Ireland are a good bet to beat the All Blacks. Not just any old bunch of silver ferns, either, but a team unbeaten in Tests on European soil since 2012 and still the world’s No 1 side. New Zealand are knocked from their rankings perch about as often as Steve Hansen fancies doing Strictly Come Dancing.

Ireland, though, are increasingly sure-footed on the game’s biggest stages. At home they have not lost in their last 10 Tests, dating back to New Zealand’s contentious 21-9 victory two years ago. Under Joe Schmidt they now march to a different tune to previous Irish squads. The 40-29 victory over the All Blacks in Chicago in 2016 will always be celebrated but their ambitions remain far from satisfied.

As current Six Nations grand slam champions and the world’s second-best team, the chance to take another giant leap beneath the Dublin floodlights now presents itself. New Zealand cannot yet be overhauled in the rankings but they can be undermined psychologically. Hansen’s men, by their own high standards, have wobbled slightly of late and should probably have lost three of their tricky quartet of recent Tests against South Africa (twice), Australia and England. Had England not let a 15-0 first-half lead slip at Twickenham, this week’s mood music would have been appreciably darker.

Ireland, either way, have shed any last vestige of an inferiority complex. Schmidt’s attention to detail is legendary and none of his players will take the field unsure of their roles. There is more than a dash of steely Kiwi in them nowadays; they will have pored over the England video and concluded New Zealand can be made to look as mortal as anyone. Ireland will seek to play as Eddie Jones’s side did in the first half-hour last Saturday: quick, brusque, direct, hard-nosed and relentless.

Motivation will not be a problem, with the heavy-duty, painfully physical loss to the same opponents at the Aviva Stadium in this corresponding fixture two years ago still the subject of much debate. A number of incidents that day would now earn instant red cards and Ireland, while obliged to keep it legal, will be physically braced this time. “Spiky” is the word Schmidt has been using: it will be that and more.

All of which makes for the year’s most compelling 80 minutes – “You can’t say it’s just another game,” murmured Johnny Sexton this week – with no shortage of riveting plotlines. The last time Sexton encountered Beauden Barrett, during the drawn 2017 Lions series, it was the former who enjoyed the last laugh. Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock may be packing down as a starting duo for a record 50th time in New Zealand’s boiler room but eclipsing the 6ft 10in Devin Toner will be tough. And then there is Schmidt, the brains behind it all. An Ireland win could just see the 53-year-old succeed Hansen as the coach of the All Blacks from 2020 onwards, which would be more than a touch ironic.

What a springboard, too, it would give Ireland heading into next year’s World Cup in Japan. Not unlike England in 2003, a compelling victory over New Zealand en route to the tournament would validate everything they are doing and send a message around the rugby world. If they do it, moreover, without Conor Murray, their scrum-half totem, and another absent Lion, the flanker Sean O’Brien, it will be all the more striking.

They cannot assume, however, that the visitors will do the job for them. New Zealand, in particular, still boast Retallick, the scourge of England. Neither he nor Whitelock were involved in Chicago and both will be central on Saturday evening. Disrupt Ireland in the lineout and you cut out their heart and lungs: Retallick is the forward the All Blacks would least like to see dropping to one knee in the opening moments.

Ireland will also be anxious to get to Aaron Smith, about to win his 82nd cap, and limit Damian McKenzie’s exhilarating footwork to his own 22. Mostly, though, they will be concentrating on building pressure, looking after the ball and then striking, when the moment comes, to maximum effect. As Hansen observed this week: “They’ll find a weakness and they’ll punish you. He’s pretty good, Joe, at finding a trick or two so we’ll be expecting one or two.”

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Kiwis of a certain age already know what it is like to lose a Test in Dublin. It almost feels like rugby’s Old Testament now but New Zealand’s defeat to Australia in the 1991 World Cup semi-final at the old Lansdowne Road still echoes down the years. It was David Campese’s finest hour: the no-look pass over his shoulder to Tim Horan, the diagonal dagger finish in the left corner. The modern All Blacks will not have to counter Campo’s genius but, as with that fine Wallaby side, Ireland have sufficient wit to make life hugely difficult.

Will it, ultimately, be enough? New Zealand, if the sky does fall in on them, can hardly say they were not warned. Only Ryan Crotty’s last-gasp try saved them in Dublin in 2013, since when Ireland have unearthed a golden generation of players – James Ryan, Tadhg Furlong, Garry Ringrose and Jacob Stockdale – far more accustomed to winning than losing.

New Zealand also look less settled in certain pivotal positions and Ireland’s defence coach, Andy Farrell, has a proven knack of throttling All Black ambition in big games like this. Ireland have won five and lost five when Saturday’s referee, Wayne Barnes, has been in charge but shaking hands with a northern hemisphere referee on a mild November afternoon in Dublin will add to New Zealand’s faint stirrings of unease.

Schmidt, either way, insists he will be delighted with “any old win against the All Blacks … I’ll take 3-0.” The drier conditions, in truth, will probably require his side to score upwards of 25 points, with the quick feet of Joey Carbery and Jordan Larmour potentially useful later. If Sexton stays on for an hour at least and Ireland can retain 15 players on the field, a famous home triumph is a real possibility. If, alternatively, New Zealand find a relieving Irish backstop under screeching pressure, the world champions will feel they can cope with anything in Japan next year.