NEW ZEALAND RUGBY CEO Mark Robinson has said the All Blacks’ series defeat to Ireland on home soil was “not acceptable.”

All Blacks head coach Ian Foster is under intense pressure after his side were beaten 2-1 by Ireland in the three Tests over the past three weekends, having also lost to Andy Farrell’s side and France last November.

There have been widespread calls for New Zealand Rugby to sack Foster in the wake of the failure against Ireland, although Robinson has indicated that the Kiwi union will work with the head coach and his staff to figure out what went wrong.

“Congratulations to the Irish team for their well-deserved win last night but clearly the performance across the series for the All Blacks was not acceptable as we know they have reflected,” said Robinson. “We all know there is a huge amount of work to do.

“Our focus now is to work with Ian and his team to understand thoroughly in advance of the Rugby Championship what is needed to improve performance and where to go from here. We will begin this work immediately.” 

Meanwhile, All Blacks second row Brodie Retallick has been ruled out of action for up to two months after suffering a broken cheekbone during yesterday’s third Test defeat.

Retallick was injured when he was tackled by Ireland prop Andrew Porter, who was shown a yellow card for his actions.

Referee Wayne Barnes felt that Porter was “absorbing the tackle” and that his challenge was not worthy of a red card.

The All Blacks will be looking to bounce back from their series defeat to Ireland when the Rugby Championship kicks-off in three weekends’ time with back-to-back games against the Springboks in South Africa.

Retallick is set to miss both of those games after New Zealand confirmed he will be sidelined for six to eight weeks with his broken cheekbone.