Rieko Ioane on what it meant to lead All Blacks’ haka against Ireland

Rieko Ioane was “more nervous” about leading the All Blacks’ haka for the first time before Friday’s clash with Ireland than the match itself. Ioane had that honour as a packed house at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium awaited another thrilling chapter of this great rugby rivalry.

Ioane and the All Blacks hadn’t played Ireland since last year’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final at Stade de France. New Zealand brought an end to Irish dreams of World Cup glory by winning that all-time classic knockout clash 28-24, but the drama didn’t stop at full-time.

In Johnny Sexton’s newly released autobiography, the former Ireland captain reflected on an exchange with Ioane after that Test. Sexton alleged Ioane had said, “Don’t miss your flight home tomorrow. Enjoy your retirement, you c**t.”

Ioane hit back on Instagram shortly after those comments were published by The Sunday Times in an extract of the book, and the build-up for November’s grudge match in Dublin seemed to intensify even more.

With Codie Taylor unavailable and TJ Perenara not selected, it remained a mystery who would be the All Blacks’ kaea until the haka itself. But, it was quite fitting that Ioane had the honour of leading the All Blacks in their traditional pre-match challenge for the first time.

“I was obviously more nervous for the kaea role and leading that haka than I was about the game,” Ioane said on Sky Sport New Zealand’s post-match coverage.

“With such great leaders like TJ (Perenara), Codie (Taylor) to help me out, it came pretty comfortable and pretty easy tonight.

“… When it comes to game days, I don’t let the emotion dictate my week. I love the spectacle of rugby and what I can influence to create.

“Feelings were hurt, stuff was said but I’m just here to play footy and win games.”

After the Irish met the All Blacks’ challenge with both respect and passion, the highly anticipated Test match got underway. Ireland’s Jack Crowley opened the scoring in the seventh minute with a penalty goal, but New Zealand hit back with three goals from Damian McKenzie.

The All Blacks led 9-3 after McKenzie’s third successful penalty goal, but the match took a turn a couple of minutes later when Jordie Barrett was sent to the sin bin. Ireland scored the next 10 points unanswered, including a try to Josh van der Flier two minutes into the second term.

McKenzie was back on the scoresheet in the 48^th minute to reduce the deficit to just a single point, and it was all the All Blacks from there as they raced out to an 18-13 lead. Will Jordan’s try in the 68^th minute was the icing on the cake, with the visitors recording a 23-13 win.

“Extremely scrappy,” Ioane reflected. “A lot of it was won in the tight stuff so our close carries, our tight tackles. It was a bit of messy ruck.

“But anytime you can come here and win, which is my first time, we’ll take it and we’re so happy.

“… Honestly, just pure joy, elation, I was so happy. We’ve come off a short week so we’ve already had some adversity leading into the week, but just to see the boys grind through… it was scrappy, we had a yellow card, a man down and we had a couple of things go against us.

“But this group is so tight and we’re really starting to see the fruits of our foundations that we laid at the start of the year. I’m just proud of the boys, happy to be an All Black.”

Following the full-time whistle, Ioane has seemingly hit back at Sexton and Ireland once again with an Instagram post. “Put that in the book,” Ioane wrote with a joker card also part of the caption.

The first photo is a picture of Ioane leading the haka.