Ireland celebrate their win last November. Image: Dan Sheridan/INPHO Ireland celebrate their win last November. Image: Dan Sheridan/INPHO THERE WAS A time when Irish trips to New Zealand brought the same level of optimism as the Titanic’s attempt to win its collision with the iceberg.
No win over the Springboks since 1965 – that sequence came to an end in 2004. It’s 5-4 to Ireland from nine encounters in the years since. “Coming to their backyard, you want to do something special by winning here. Is it 28 years since they have been beaten in Eden Park?” But this nation does still love their All Blacks. And the side love playing here. The French were the last side to win at this venue and that was so long ago that rugby was still an amateur sport. But what relevance does history really have in the here and now?
It doesn’t make Ireland favourites for Saturday. They’re not. Nor should they be. Looking at this rationally, looking at the New Zealand starting XV, the side you expect to win Saturday is the All Blacks. They have won 84 per cent of their Tests in Eden Park; they have not lost a series at home since 1994, have only lost four home series full stop since records began.
Van der Flier sang from the same hymnsheet: “We need to be better than we were last November,” said the Leinster flanker. “I think we can be, too. The way we train – there is a lot of unstructured stuff. There is a lot of variation to what we do.”
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