All Blacks v Ireland: Dave Rennie’s side unveil brutal and beautiful blueprint in big win

All Blacks 40

Ireland 21

By Liam Napier at Eden Park

Dave Rennie’s All Blacks have unveiled their brutal and beautiful blueprint.

With a potent, sweet spot blend of speed, power and relentless physicality, the All Blacks ground Ireland into the Eden Park turf to add a 53rd successive notch on the belt at their favoured fortress.

The first two victories of Rennie’s All Blacks era against France and Italy offered cautious promise of vast improvements.

Understandably, given the compressed timeframe, so too were patchy, scratchy elements evident.

Against France the All Blacks were guilty of overplaying their hand at times and their skill execution wasn’t where it needed to be.

The following week against Italy in Wellington the All Blacks battled to win the physical collisions and generate desired go-forward. A third-quarter blitz blew Italy away, but the platform required attention.

Returning to their spiritual Auckland home, Rennie remodelled the All Blacks forward pack to inject serious size and power by starting Patrick Tuipulotu and switching Tupou Vaa’i to blindside flanker. Both selections brought immediate rewards.

Tuipulotu delivered a relentless, direct, powerful presence in the middle of the park while Vaa’i caused havoc roaming the edges with his long limbs.

Week three allowed the All Blacks to refine their attacking approach. The core of their philosophy to retain the ball, harness speed and chase the width with sweeping backdoor plays remained prevalent. They savoured 69% possession in the first quarter but they were much more direct at times, with forwards punching up the middle close to the ruck to suck in Ireland’s defence.

Adjustments were also obvious elsewhere, too, with the All Blacks using the boot to turn Ireland around – Ruben Love’s first half 50/22 one example.

Last week, the All Blacks kicked four times in the first half. From using the maul to kicking, there was much more variety from the All Blacks.

With their platform providing go-forward, the All Blacks embraced a ruck speed and tempo Ireland couldn’t handle.

Ireland were on the ropes, and soon out for the count. By halftime, staring down the barrel of a 28-7 deficit, dreams of a maiden Eden Park victory were dashed.

Ireland’s skill execution was horrible at times, well below standards expected at first XV level. Passes hit the deck, went into touch and gifted Will Jordan a try. The All Blacks’ try-scoring record holder needs no second invitation, either.

Those frequent errors and a string of offside penalties reflected the pressure the All Blacks imposed on Ireland.

Ireland’s only respite came from a Luke Jacobson yellow card for a dangerous cleanout. That let Ireland off the hook, with the All Blacks hot on attack, and they scored while Jacobson was in the bin. Yet even then the All Blacks managed to level the ledger in that 10-minute period thanks to Jordan’s strike.

Four first-half tries from the All Blacks sparked panic in Ireland’s ranks. The most telling of those was Ardie Savea storming over off the back of the scrum five metres out to embarrass Ireland’s defence.

With ball in hand the All Blacks were slick with their catch-pass skills significantly improving from the last two weeks.

Defensively, the All Blacks largely dominated the collisions. They pushed off the line to hit hard and often with two in the tackle. Jacobson led the charge, with Quinn Tupaea another strong contributor.

While the second half wasn’t perfect, Rennie will be pleased with the genuine impact from his bench. Codie Taylor departed through injury after half an hour, which paved the way for Asafo Aumua to showcase his power carrying that earned him a try. Xavier Numia and Caleb Clarke also injected influential impact.

Four successive wins for the All Blacks over Ireland definitively reshapes one of the great modern rivalries. Ireland’s first series victory in New Zealand four years ago, and the carnage it caused the All Blacks, is now cast as a distant memory.

Ireland, world No 3, arrived on the back of six straight wins – four of those in the Six Nations – but the one-sided nature of this loss will go a long way to confirming suspicions they are an ageing, fading force from their peak three years ago.

Maybe when they regain some key frontline troops, Andy Farrell can inspire a revival but, at this point, introspection is needed.

On this evidence, Ireland are well below the All Blacks, Springboks and France.

Three wins to start the Nations Championship, preserving Eden Park’s 32-year unbeaten status – the longest active unbeaten tier one streak at a single venue – and genuine progression is the ideal launchpad for Rennie to prepare for his next assignment.

The gruelling eight-match South African tour will be among the most challenging tests the All Blacks confront in the professional era.

But as members of the 1996 All Blacks, the first to claim a series success in South Africa, witnessed their successors humble Ireland, they will be heartened by the rapid improvements Rennie has inspired.

All Blacks 40 (Patrick Tuipulotu, Ardie Savea, Will Jordan, Asafo Aumua, Damian McKenzie, Anton Lienert-Brown tries; Ruben Love 5 cons)

Ireland 21 (Jack Conan, Joe McCarthy, Hugo Keenan tries; Sam Prendergast 2 cons)

HT: 28-7

Liam Napier is a Senior Sports Journalist and Rugby Correspondent for the New Zealand Herald. He is a co-host of the Rugby Direct podcast.