Four talking points as Andy Farrell's Ireland host the All Blacks

If Friday’s Aviva Stadium fixture is even just half as good as the classic served up 13 months ago when Ireland agonisingly lost to New Zealand at Stade de France, then we are in for a rollicking night’s entertainment.

That Rugby World Cup quarter-final, which ended 28-24 in favour of the All Blacks, was one of the sport’s best-ever games and this renewal of the now feisty rivalry should be a spectacular way for the IRFU to begin its 150th-year anniversary celebrations.

Andy Farrell and Scott Robertson named their respective teams on Wednesday afternoon, the Irish coach including 10 of the starters and 17 of the match day 23 from the Parisian epic and the new Kiwi boss confirming less of a carry-over, seven retained starters and 10 of the same 23.

New Zealand have arrived in Dublin off the back of a second-place Rugby Championship finish, a September-ending campaign followed by wins in recent weeks over Japan in Yokohama and England in London. Ireland, in sharp contrast, have been idle since their dramatic last-gasp win over South Africa in Durban on July 13. Here are the RugbyPass talking points:

Dented aura

You have to hand it to Ireland coach Farrell and South Africa’s Rassie Erasmus for the way they have relentlessly chipped away the aura of the All Blacks on their watch. Until they respectively got stuck in, the Irish had never beaten New Zealand in 29 matches while the Springboks were on a miserable run of just two wins in 17 encounters.

Now look at the scores on the boards. Farrell has been a winner in five of his nine encounters with New Zealand since 2016 as either the Irish defence coach or Irish head coach (he was also on defensive duties when the British and Irish Lions drew the three-game 2017 series).

Meanwhile, Erasmus’ record since 2018 as either Springboks head coach or SA high-performance boss is W7 D1 L5. Well played, both coaches, for challenging and changing the narrative that the All Blacks were somehow unbeatable.

South Africa have won their last four against their arch-rivals and the task now for Farrell, fresh from his team’s drawn Test series away to the Springboks, is to unleash a game plan that heartedly backs up the general expectation that Ireland will be Friday night winners.

Having followed up a historic 2022 series win in New Zealand with a comprehensive 29-20 win in Dublin two Novembers ago, they were clinically ambushed at the World Cup in Ian Foster’s final campaign.

Farrell insisted on Wednesday that this Autumn Nations Series clash wasn’t about ‘revenge’ for that knockout World Cup blow, but the deflating manner of that defeat provides plenty of fuel and does hold the key to winning this rematch.

An outfit very much used to winning games from the front, Ireland failed in Paris to master the scoreboard pressure that came with trailing for 77 minutes of the match. That shortcoming was abundant in the stark difference in the number of turnovers, Ireland giving up 11 to New Zealand’s meagre three.

The other standout statistic was that while the Irish ‘won’ 14-3 in the 20-minute period in which the opposition were down players to yellow cards, they were ‘beaten’ 10-25 in the hour when the contest was 15 versus 15.

That’s quite the hammering when viewed from that particular perspective, a painful dent to the credibility of the Irish in this Farrell era. The onus is firmly on them to start way better, not trail an insurmountable 0-13 20 minutes in, and also vigilantly treasure the ball when they have it.

Scrum deal

Mention credibility, one Ireland player who needs to produce is Andrew Porter, the loosehead who isn’t shy of an on-pitch tantrum when things don’t go his way. Look at the fall-out from the World Cup: he didn’t take kindly to getting penalised twice at the scrum by referee Wayne Barnes.

Porter admitted a month after the defeat that “my blood was honestly boiling after a while because I just felt like I had been hard done by”.

If he still feels that way, then let’s see a powerful reaction where he puts the New Zealand set-piece under pressure and exerts enough of an impact to convince Australian Nic Berry, this rematch’s referee, to rule in his favour at the set-piece.

Porter wasn’t deemed to be the only scrum culprit at Stade de France; Finlay Bealham was also punished on the other side of the front row by Barnes after he had replaced Tadhg Furlong.

Bealham now starts with Furlong missing through injury, and there is also an alteration in the opposition props with sub loosehead Tamaiti Williams a starter alongside Tyrel Lomax.

Those three penalties conceded by the Irish set-piece 13 months ago all came on the New Zealand put-in in a contest where the bizarre curiosity was that Ireland never had a scrum of their own to feed into and work from.

Their defensive scrum also had its struggles in South Africa last time out – remember the wincing penalty try they conceded to the ‘bomb squad’ in Pretoria when horsed backwards and then collapsed. Here’s hoping specialist coach John Fogarty has done the remedial work and the desired improvement materialises.

Fortress Aviva

Skulking out an Aviva Stadium back-entrance on Valentine’s Day in 2021, you would never have imagined heading back to the home of Irish rugby nearly four years later with Farrell’s Ireland looking to make it 20 wins in a row at the D4 venue.

Ireland were anaemic that long ago Sunday many moons ago, their lack of energy and creativity in a behind-closed-doors Six Nations loss to France stoking fears that Farrell might not be cut out for the head coaching gig after years in the shadows as an assistant.

If the ideas existed, they were getting lost in translation moving on from the Joe Schmidt era. Not since 1998 had the Irish abjectly lost their opening two matches in the championship, but their flourish since that dark 2021 day has been euphoric.

Their streak, which has steeled their World Rugby No1 ranking, has featured three wins over both England and Italy, two wins each against Scotland, Wales and Japan, and one win versus New Zealand, South Africa, France, Australia, Argentina, Fiji and the USA. Sweet.

The intrigue about it is that Aviva Stadium, which opened in 2010 on the site of the old Lansdowne Road, never ranked for its atmosphere. As a consequence, visiting teams never felt intimidated but that has changed of late.

Yes, there are still frustrations, especially over ‘fans’ who prioritise pints ahead of points and are constantly on the move, keeping the booze flowing much to the annoyance of the supporters whose view of the action gets regularly disturbed.

However, there is a post-pandemic frisson to the stadium and this vibe will be expected to play its part in cheering Farrell’s Ireland on at a fortress that has certainly found its voice recently.

Doris audition

It didn’t take New Zealand long to settle in after flying over from London. They were soon pictured dining at Gleesons in Booterstown, just around the corner from their Stillorgan Road hotel, with soon-to-be Leinster player Jordie Barrett – who spent some childhood years living on a farm on Co Meath when dad played All Ireland League for Buccaneers – also filmed finishing off the pulling of pints of Guinness.

There was also a midweek reminisce from coach Robertson about his gap year at off-the-beaten-track Ards, learning the adult rugby ropes in Northern Ireland and realising the importance of education. When he went home and signed his contract with the Crusaders, part of his deal was that they paid for him to attend Lincoln University.

This learning hasn’t stopped all these years for Robertson, who is 11 matches deep into his Test-coaching career and looking to add the reputation-enhancing scalp of Ireland to his W8 L3 record.

How he manages his team from the touchline in Dublin will be critically monitored, but he won’t be the only ‘rookie’ under the microscope. Ireland No8 Caelan Doris has been anointed Farrell’s skipper and how he deals with referee Berry will attract attention.

There were criticisms of his communication with Luke Pearce when he took over from the subbed Peter O’Mahony in last July’s Test defeat in Pretoria, but he was better clued into the role the following week when Karl Dickson was on the whistle and a win was secured in Durban.

Doris has since permanently assumed the Leinster and Ireland captaincy and with it being a British and Irish Lions tour season, he is very much fancied to lead that expedition to Australia under Farrell. A confident show of leadership versus the All Blacks and a good return in his positional head to head with Ardie Savea would be a great start to that audition.