The ‘unsung hero’ who helped All Blacks’ bench make a telling difference

Assistant coach Jason Ryan has highlighted “unsung hero” Ofa Tu’ungafasi while praising the collective effort of the All Blacks’ bench during last weekend’s 24-22 win over England at Allianz Stadium in Twickenham, London.

It wasn’t too long ago that a worrying trend had emerged involving the All Blacks’ impact players off the pine. Throughout The Rugby Championship, Scott Robertson’s team failed to score inside the last 20 minutes of five Tests before snapping that streak in Wellington.

But it was an entirely different story last weekend against the English. New Zealand’s impact players delivered under pressure as the visitors clawed their way back to take the lead with less than five minutes to run at the iconic rugby venue.

Towering lock Patrick Tuipulotu had the equal-sixth most carries out of any All Black despite coming on as a replacement early in the second term, and Tu'ungafasi was also impactful off the pine. But, of course, the man of the moment was replacement Damian McKenzie.

McKenzie stepped up and slotted a clutch conversion from the right sideline to hand the All Blacks the lead with four minutes left to play. That proved to be the difference, with the English failing to make the most of some point-scoring opportunities to snatch it late.

“When you look at the earlier Tests in the season, it hasn’t been so great and we put a bit of work into that around how do we set these boys up to succeed might get limited time but need to make a massive impact,” Ryan said on SENZ Breakfast.

“We’ve probably got a bit more experience back now with Patty (Tuipulotu), he never went to (South) Africa, came on – unreal.

“Then the front row boys also scrummaged really well and as did the backs that came on and made a difference.

“Probably a bit of an unsung hero to be really honest with you has been Ofa (Tu’ungafasi), he’s been unreal this year for us in how he’s prepared our younger front rowers. He’s been so good and it’s a real credit to him, how he’s prepared as an All Black.

“He had a couple of big moments that he was a part of that probably swung the Test match to be fair.”

The All Blacks have won their last four Test matches on the bounce, which includes back-to-back Bledisloe Cup triumphs over the Wallabies and a win against Japan. But, it doesn’t get any easier for the men in black who are due to face the world’s top-ranked side this week.

For the first time since last year’s iconic Rugby World Cup quarter-final at Stade de France, the All Blacks will take on Ireland. The Irish are kicking off their international season before also facing Argentina, Fiji and Australia at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium.

“Probably the short passing game is a little bit different,” Ryan said when asked about the Irish.

“I think they look at a lot of variation around Jamison Gibson-Park which we’ve had a look at. I think that they’ve got good threats across the park that can get on the ball and slow momentum down in the first couple of phases at the breakdown.

“They’re a pretty cohesive team, they’ve been together for a long time. They know their identity and what they want to achieve; play extremely fast at the breakdown.

“I think us coming out of a big intensive Test match like it was at Twickenham, she was some contest, it was good for us.”