THE BEST IRELAND win of all time? The only surprise about that previous sentence is the fact there is a question mark at the end of it.
We could go back to 1948 and Jack Kyle’s Grand Slam. We could tip our hats towards the boys of ’09, BOD, Rog, The Bull, Darce, Paulie (O’Connell not McCartney) – a team so beloved that people only remember their nicknames.
Then there was the 2018 Grand Slam, Sexton with his drop goal, Jacob Stockdale with his run of try after try after try, the fact that championship was bookended by victories in Paris and London.
“It isn’t easy to win here,” said Johnny Sexton way back then.
Yet it is a doddle compared to getting one over the All Blacks in Dunedin and Wellington. That’s why this tour success, masterminded by the incomparable Sexton on the pitch, guided by the vastly underrated Andy Farrell off it, deserves to go down as the biggest achievement in the history of Irish rugby.
For context, look how rarely it has been done. The Springboks managed just one successful tour here, way back in 1937. England have been involved in six series, and have lost all six. The Welsh have a similarly miserable return while the British and Irish Lions – this mythical team – have been rubbish, winning one and drawing one of their 12 series here.
Then there is the French. Nine times they’ve toured here. Seven series losses, one draw and one victory – way back in 1994 – is their lot. The Aussies fare better with two successful series in New Zealand but even that comes with an asterisk. The victorious 1949 tourists won both Tests here against what was effectively a B team – as New Zealand’s first teamers were touring – and losing – to South Africa that same winter. They didn’t repeat that mistake in 1986 but Australia won again then, too.
And that’s it. In over century of touring rugby and over half a century of Test series on New Zealand soil, the All Blacks had lost just five series. On Saturday in Wellington, five became six.
Who’d have believed that before Farrell, Sexton et al left Ireland a month ago? Who’d have believed it after they lost their first two games of the tour, to the Maori All Blacks in Hamilton and then to New Zealand at Eden Park?
More to the point who’d have believed it when Will Jordan ran away from Sexton to touch down in the right-corner on 61 minutes of Saturday’s pulsating Test to turn a 22-3 half-time deficit into a more manageable 25-22 gap?
Previous Irish teams would have folded. But this one didn’t. And the signs have been there to suggest they wouldn’t. We just weren’t paying enough attention to notice them.
Remember Twickenham in March? England had levelled things up approaching the final quarter. Ireland emptied the bench and rattled up score after score from that moment on to record their biggest away win in London.
What about Paris a month before? The French were out of sight at half-time; Ireland recovering to take the game to the wire, losing by just six. Then last November, against the All Blacks in Dublin, they were 10-5 down at half-time; they ended up outscoring New Zealand by 14 points in the second half.
Then Saturday. Outscored 19 points to three in 20 second-half minutes, listening to the roars of a Wellington crowd chanting ‘All Blacks, All Blacks’, conscious they were missing Ronan Kelleher, Garry Ringrose, Andrew Conway and Stockdale, they fought back, Rob Herring’s try the moment of the tour.
A few days earlier, Farrell had talked about how he wanted everyone to lead, not just Sexton and Peter O’Mahony. Words turned into actions on Saturday, this game won in the mind as well as on the pitch.
“Yes, the mental side of the game is something that we’ve worked on strongly since the last World Cup,” Sexton said. “It doesn’t just change automatically. It’s been gradual. We saw some improvements through the Six Nations, especially at Twickenham, when we struggled against 14 men for a while. But we bounced back from that.
“Look, it’s only 18 months ago that we were being written off, so coming back from that shows fortitude as well. It would be amazing to go and pick out some of the articles that were written 18 months ago about us, about me. It would be good to go back and look and keep our feet on the ground.”
Staying grounded should be easily enough done because they have enough painful memories to retain their focus this time. In 2018, they beat all round them to effectively end the year as the world’s best side, even if New Zealand still had the No1 ranking. We all know what happened next.
The same issues crept up in 2015 and 2007, brilliant Six Nations campaigns followed by underwhelming World Cups. This time, this team, seem better equipped to treat triumph and disaster the same way.
“The best part of Saturday was when they came back at us, how we stayed neutral,” Farrell said. “We never missed a beat, we got back on track. We knew that New Zealand were always going to have a big purple patch, because they always do.
“I thought we were mentally very tough and we’re getting better at that. Are we anywhere near where we want to be? We’re not. We’re definitely not.”
He was then asked a question about whether he ever doubted if he had taken too much on, putting his team into a five-game tour, the two midweek Maori games being de-facto Tests.
“Every day, but that was the point,” Farrell said. “I asked too much of myself and the staff as well, but that was the point: to see whether we had excuses, to see whether we had people who just go ‘tunnel vision’ and start worrying about themselves instead of ‘team first’ — because that’s a big mantra of ours.
“So, that way, we were always going to get the learnings that we were craving. Of course there’s a bit of luck here and there but there was never any excuses. Only these guys know — the people that are part of the group know the truth. We put them under some immense pressure on purpose and they never missed a beat.
“Not one person had an excuse, not one person gave out about anything. They’ve been unbelievably easy to manage and they’ve all bought in, and therefore to come away with what is the hardest thing to do in world rugby, under those conditions, is pretty special.”
So too were the final words of their press briefing, Sexton smiling as he revealed that his wife, Laura, had sent him a text, saying: “Whatever happens tomorrow, you’d better leave it in New Zealand!” Sexton’s response? “I guess I’d better play well, then.”
He certainly kept his end of the bargain.