Not one to turn down one last laugh at Johnny Sexton’s expense, the All Blacks centre Rieko Ioane took to Instagram to celebrate New Zealand’s 23-13 victory at the Aviva Stadium with a pointed message.
After ending Ireland’s 19-match winning streak in Dublin, Ioane posted a series of photos from the event, including the jibe: “Put that in the book.”
In case you have been living under a rock, a beef between Ioane and Sexton started at last year’s Rugby World Cup when Ioane told Sexton to “enjoy retirement, you c—” after New Zealand had inflicted a second consecutive quarter-final defeat on the Irish, leading Sexton to respond by calling him a “fake-humble f—–”. The feud provided a nice bit of niggle ahead of the game.
The best thing about the build-up to this game from an Irish perspective was the pre-match post on X by a user called ‘Steven Connolly Impressionist’.
Using the scene from The Shining where Jack’s wife tiptoes into the room at the Overlook Hotel where her husband has been ‘writing’ his novel for months – only with Johnny Sexton’s head superimposed onto Jack Nicholson’s and Rieko Ioane’s superimposed onto Shelley Duvall’s – it was an amusing take on the “the beef” which so dominated the build up to this match.
In the end, though, it was Ireland who produced a horror show beyond even Stanley Kubrick’s imagination. Instead of revenge for last year’s World Cup misery, they slumped to a first defeat on home soil for three and a half years. Looking back, it might have been wise to have a warm-up game before taking on the world’s most consistently brilliant team. All work and no play makes Ireland a sloppy outfit? The statistics would suggest so.
In the end it was difficult to escape the impression that New Zealand completely and utterly trolled Ireland here. Selecting Ioane to lead their haka was pure provocation on New Zealand’s part. They knew how he would be the panto villain all evening and even after the game, and he was – one massive hit by Garry Ringrose on the New Zealand centre in the first-half provided arguably the biggest cheer of the evening. They knew how it would go down. But they did it anyway. And they came out on top.
Ireland had said all week that this game was not about revenge for them. That last year’s World Cup exit was out of their system. But perhaps they did get sucked in. It felt like they were spoiling for a fight. Responding to the haka by advancing to near the halfway line got the crowd going. The hit on Ioane. The handbags between ‘Big Joe’ McCarthy and Scott Barrett, which produced another reaction from the crowd, which included Paul ‘Gladiator’ Mescal who roared for blood as if he was in the Colosseum.
But Ireland had forgotten how to play rugby. It is difficult to recall a performance where they made so many basic errors and so many players had stinkers. Ironically, it was their New Zealand-born trio, Jamison Gibson-Park, James Lowe and Bundee Aki, who did their best to drag them back into it. There were precious few highlights, Josh van der Flier’s try aside. Jack Crowley was hooked before the hour was up. His replacement Ciaran Frawley came on and managed to spill a ball which had steam coming out of the nose of Farrell up in the coach’s box.
Credit must go to New Zealand. In a game which was not high on quality, they managed to dominate possession and territory, quieten the crowd, survive a period where they went down to 14 men, and score a well-worked try through Will Jordan.
Everyone assumed next year’s Lions would be dominated by Irish players. But they should remember they can play themselves out of contention as well as into it, even with Farrell as the Lions head coach.
No doubt they will improve through the autumn. Ireland are the No 1 ranked team in the world for a reason, but after this horror show, they will need to. It feels increasingly as if the rivalry between them and the All Blacks has swung back in New Zealand’s favour. As Ioane will no doubt post on Instagram by the time you read this: In your head, in your head… The All Blacks, All Blacks.
