Ireland great describes All Blacks game as ‘ultimate benchmark’ with ‘no excuses available’
All Blacks players celebrate versus Italy while Ireland's Jamison Gibson-Park, inset, does likewise versus Australia
Former Ireland midfielder Gordon D’Arcy has described the style of New Zealand’s play as the type of examination that Andy Farrell’s teams find hardest to deal with.
The Irish are two wins from two after the opening rounds of the new Nations Championship, building on their run of four successive wins earlier this year in the Six Nations following an opening night loss away to France.
However, this six-game winning streak faces its toughest test yet with Ireland set to next play the All Blacks on Saturday at Eden Park, a ground where the hosts haven’t been beaten since 1994.
When Farrell’s Ireland last encountered New Zealand back in November, Scott Robertson was at the helm and he led them to a 26-13 comeback win in Chicago.
“The All Blacks are building something specific…”
However, he was soon sacked as head coach and replaced by Dave Rennie, whose new era has gotten up and running in recent weeks with home wins over France and Italy.
Rennie will now look to make it three wins on the bounce, but he will encounter an Irish team returning to New Zealand for the first time since clinching an historic 2-1 Test series victory in 2022, an era when Ian Foster was in charge of the All Blacks.
Several Ireland players from that tour are still very important players four years later, but D’Arcy, the 2009 Grand Slam winner who forged a record-setting midfield partnership with Brian O’Driscoll, believes Farrell’s charges will have their work cut out to shut down the high-tempo hosts.
Writing in The Irish Times ahead of the weekend’s round three Nations Championship match, he said: “The New Zealand game is the ultimate benchmark. There are no excuses available, no heavy rotation, no rawness, no unfamiliarity to hide behind.
“The All Blacks are building something specific. Dave Rennie has handed the out-half jersey to Ruben Love, a 25-year-old with barely a handful of caps, picked purely on form ahead of Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie.
“Love’s instinct is to attack. It is a point of difference, and he is the meat in a Hurricanes sandwich with Cam Roigard and Jordie Barrett. Look at their back three and playmaking options – Love, McKenzie, the Barretts and Will Jordan – and you see four or five players capable of blowing a game open.
“Stylistically, it is the type of examination Ireland finds hardest. We are a reasonably conservative side, orthodox in exits from our 22, conventional kick/run options in the middle third of the field and a largely structured game.
“New Zealand are the opposite: high tempo, play to width, ball moved away from the breakdown at lightning speed. No one waits for Roigard. If he’s not there, someone else whips the ball away. The team is geared to move it away from the contact point, to keep it alive and let the picture form organically.
“That is precisely the type of rugby with which we have struggled historically. Give us the heavy, upfront confrontation of South Africa, England or Argentina and, for whatever reason, aside from the occasional blip, we manage it well. Give us a team that plays at pace and keeps the ball alive, and we have often flattered to deceive.”
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Having toured Australia with a British and Irish Lions squad dominated by Ireland players, a trip that lasted until the first weekend of August, several of Farrell’s players have essentially had one season running into the next. While they are on a six-match winning run following their recent victories over Australia and Japan, their overall record for the 2025/26 season is Played 11: Won 8, Lost 3.
After losing to New Zealand in the USA, a display not helped by an early red card for Tadhg Beirne, they were also beaten last November at home in Dublin by South Africa before then losing on their travels to the French in February.
It’s a run of results which suggests that Ireland, despite their current No.3 world ranking, aren’t the force they were a few years ago when they topped the rankings. They have since slipped behind the No.1 South Africa, but they now have a chance to make a statement against the No.2 New Zealand this weekend.
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“We will want a performance, a positive result, despite coming off a long season and playing a fresher New Zealand group of players in their own backyard,” suggested D’Arcy. “We should want those things. But whatever comes, the scrutiny that follows must be proportionate to how the game was; not to what we wanted it to be.
“If Ireland go close, that tells us something real. If they don’t, that tells us something too. Either way, the value is in reading it honestly. You would never bet against a Farrell side finding a performance from somewhere. They have made a habit of delivering the ones you don’t see coming.
“The odds are stacked against them. That is exactly why it is worth watching carefully. For what it is, not what we want it to be.”
