PARIS — What a game. What a game. What a game.
The Rugby World Cup might play another 50 quarterfinals and not have another as good as what took place at the Stade de France on Saturday night as New Zealand and Ireland slugged it out over 80 enthralling minutes that will live long in the memory.
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This was a contest worthy of a final. Or 10 finals.
With all due respect to what transpired in Marseille earlier Saturday, when the Pumas came from behind to defeat Wales, this was a game on another level. On a whole other planet, even.
When the All Blacks survived one final Ireland attacking raid, one that lasted 37 phases and shifted from side to side, exhibiting amazing control, players from both sides collapsed to the ground.
Ireland in devastation, New Zealand a mix of exhaustion and celebration. The 28-24 victory was theirs, they had denied Ireland two pieces of history — a maiden semifinal berth and the equal Tier 1 Test record of 18-straight wins — and they were off to the last four once more themselves, where they will be heavy favourites to beat Michael Cheika’s Pumas.
Who else but Sam Whitelock, that grand old campaigner and now the most capped All Black of all time, would you expect to win the match-sealing penalty?
“This is a special day for us; excuse me, I’ve lost my voice, it was quite loud in that [coach’s] box,” All Blacks coach Ian Foster said. “I think the world’s been talking about these two quarterfinals for 12 months, even longer — our one, and the one tomorrow night between France and South Africa is likely to be the same — they’re massive games.
“Two very proud teams, you saw them desperate to want it, and sometimes the sweetest victories is when your opponent plays really really well and tests you to the limit. We didn’t want to play Ireland with two yellow cards and Ireland have a got a big record of winning big games when the opposition get cards — and they often do get cards when they play Ireland for some remote reason, I’m not sure why — but at the end of the day we played a lot of that game with 14 men and I couldn’t be more proud Sam [Cane] and the players.
“And I thought we looked in control of it, and it felt good.”
New Zealand came to play from the outset. Their swagger back after big wins over Namibia, Italy and Uruguay, the All Blacks began with a flurry. Despite a 30-phase sequence when they were unable to breach the line, New Zealand quickly turned a 3-0 lead into a 13-point advantage.
Any thought that those three pool wins would have left them underprepared for a quarterfinal of this magnitude was quickly forgotten. If anything, they looked refreshed. They combined combativeness at the breakdown with moments of brilliant attack and quality finishing.
The game was barely a quarter old and Ardie Savea, Brodie Retallick and Sam Cane each had either a breakdown turnover or penalty — there was life in the veterans yet.
But any thought this Ireland team would crumble at its first real moment of adversity this tournament was also swiftly erased. Having gone down 13-0 following a classy 1-2 passing exchange between Rieko Ioane and Leicester Fainga’anuku, after a brilliant chip-and-regather from Beauden Barrett, Ireland were handed a gift three points from the restart.
Where other teams may have chased a try as an immediate response, Ireland skipper Jonny Sexton calmly pointed to the posts to get his team on the scoreboard. When Bundee Aki powered his way over five minutes later, the Kiwi-born centre beating four All Blacks defenders coming off his right foot, the margin was suddenly three points.
But then another momentum swing. A lost Ireland lineout was compounded by a brilliant Will Jordan 50/22, which the All Blacks worked infield from their lineout before coming back to the right corner, where Savea was ready to dive into the corner. The margin was eight points.
Yet there was another twist to come in an exhilarating first 40 minutes as Mack Hansen, who had created something out of nothing while scooping up a loose ball in the lead-up to Aki’s try, poked his head through the line and offloaded. At first glance it looked like a knock-on from Jamison Gibson-Park, but replays found the slightest of touches from an outstretched Aaron Smith hand and the All Blacks No. 9 was soon headed to the bin.
Smith can’t be any poker player, as his face told an immediate story as the TMO was called into action. Like a kid not accustomed to getting into trouble at school, Smith knew his goose was cooked and sheepishly made his way to the touchline.
That was compounded when Gibson-Park went himself from Ireland’s lineout drive, the No. 9 stretching out with his right hand to touch down 15 metres to the left of the posts. 18-17 New Zealand.
And that was just the first half.
The second 40 followed an almost identical, if at the same time mirror-like, script.
Ireland pressed early but couldn’t add to the scoreboard while Smith was in the bin, before the All Blacks rebuffed another Irish counter with Savea once more winning a vital breakdown penalty. That allowed New Zealand to clear to halfway, from which Mo’unga sliced through, before he drew James Lowe and sent Will Jordan on a run to the corner.
Mo’unga’s touchline conversion restored his team’s eight-point lead and it felt like the three-time champions might just be snatching the upper hand.
But again Ireland came back at them, as they pressed, and pressed again; the world’s No. 1 team not always stressing the All Blacks, yet their ball retention and control was superb, with Sexton steering the ship from the pocket as usual.
That pressure eventually told as they rolled the maul from a five-metre lineout, immediately got it going forward, and forced Codie Taylor to the deck. Referee Wayne Barnes had no hesitation and immediately set off for the posts to award the penalty try, before quickly handing the All Blacks No. 2 a 10-minute breather.
Another momentum shift, but would Ireland finally be able to wrest the lead from their opponents?
Again the tide turned.
A scrum penalty to the All Blacks — they were awarded two during the match and generally had the upper hand at the set-piece — handed Jordie Barrett a 45-metre penalty, which the fullback pulled wide. But when he was given another shot from a far easier distance and angle, he made no mistake. Replacement scrum-half Conor Murray will be kicking himself for pulling Barrett’s arm as he chased through an All Blacks’ high ball, that infringement meaning the Irish would have to find a fourth try to steal the result.
And how close they came, even before the final stomach-twisting, nerve-jangling exchange, they were held up over the line from another driving maul, with Jordie Barrett again at the heart of the decisive play. As replacement hooker Ronan Kelleher peeled off the side, Barrett was able to wedge himself between the turf and Kelleher, holding the ball up off the turf by the barest of margins.
That near-miss was compounded when Caelan Doris dropped the ball cold from the restart. It was a rare blemish from an otherwise strong showing from the Irish No. 8.
Cue the finish. The absorbing, exhausting finish. From side to side Ireland moved the ball, forwards and backs taking turns to cart it into the black wall; they put their heads through, made New Zealand scramble even, but the All Blacks’ line was too resilient, too committed — too good.
The heart was racing as a neutral; one can only imagine what it must have been like with a dog in this fight.
While this was a game no team deserved to lose, it was the All Blacks who played from in front for all but the first eight minutes. Foster’s team always had their noses ahead, and always seemed to be that little bit more comfortable; the trust in their defensive shape was superb.
“Fine margins and all that,” Ireland coach Andy Farrell said when asked where he thought his team had lost the gripping contest.
“Getting held up over the line from a maul, very close to the end, which could have sealed the game, those little bits are all over the game, aren’t they. Ifs, buts and maybes and all that, but at the end of the day two good teams out there, playing some outstanding rugby, and unfortunately for us we came out on the wrong side of the score.
“Sport can be cruel sometimes and that’s why we love it so much; I suppose I’ll reflect on it more over the coming days, but my initial feelings are that I’m unbelievably proud of the group and how they’ve handled themselves, not just today or through the tournament, but how they’ve handled themselves as people over the last couple of years — that would be my overriding feeling.”
Savea, Retallick and Cane worked tirelessly in defence and the breakdown, while the Barrett brothers, all three of them, reinforced their status as the game’s most talented family. Smiley Barrett will be a proud man tonight.
The All Blacks made 226 of their 257 tackles at 88%, which was 80 more than their opponents were asked to. Ireland’s attack was as fluent, controlled and determined as it has ever been across this amazing unbeaten run, but it just felt like New Zealand knew what was coming and were able to retain the belief in their system to see it out.
This will be a heartbreaking defeat for the Irish. Their journey to 17 wins and world No. 1 has had the feel of unstoppable tidal wave to it, with Sexton for a long time looking like he might go out on the ultimate high. But there will be no fairytale finish for the veteran No. 10.
His status as a great of the game, not just one from his own country, is still undoubtedly secure.
Gibson-Park, Lowe, Gary Ringrose, Josh van der Flier — save for the bad miss on Mo’unga in the lead-up to Jordan’s try — and Tadgh Beirne were among Ireland’s best, while Aki carted the ball into many of his former teammates on no less than 20 occasions. The Kiwi-born centre was there at the finish, his head buried into the Stade de France turf, knowing his team had given it all and still come up short.
That is the brutal reality of sport, the knockout stage of any World Cup in particular. No matter the code, there must be a winner and a loser.
This game didn’t deserve the latter — but it is the All Blacks marching on in their quest for a fourth Webb Ellis crown, and the Irish facing another four-year run pondering how they can ever get past the quarterfinals.