. No one knows how or where it started, but this salute on your step out the door is widespread, and has endured. So, you’re asking yourself, maybe Rieko Ioane was getting in on the action when Ireland’s designated quarter-final stop arrived at last year’s World Cup, the last time these teams met. The Kiwis were driving the bus at the time. Maybe he was asking Johnny Sexton had Ireland’s departing legend forgotten his manners.
Not according to Sexton’s account. That little poisonous interplay between them has hurried this fixture along, even if Ireland’s fly-half is involved now only in the background as coach to the 10s in the squad, and won’t be on site for this. For sure though there’ll be something in the air.
“Hopefully – that’s what everyone wants, isn’t it?” Andy Farrell says. “They want it as well. That’s what normally happens when the All Blacks come into town anyway. I haven’t seen it any different to that so I think Irish rugby’s in a good place. I think everyone knows New Zealand are always the team to beat so I expect it to be as good as ever, if not better.”
Even without that added ingredient tickets were snapped up for a fixture Farrell has been targeting since a satisfying summer, ending all square, in South Africa. In his pre-tour budget the New Zealand coach, Scott Robertson, would have allowed for a big spend at the Aviva.
Consider the drain on resources: team leaders Beauden Barrett and Codie Taylor removed this week from a frame that looks unfinished since the departure of Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick, Aaron Smith and Richie Mo’unga.
So it’s hard to put a price on the value of an away win in this fixture, their 12th Test of a season with three defeats in the opening four outings. This is not just a period of Kiwi transition for new …
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