“Finally”.
Only one word but probably one of the best opening paragraphs in sports journalism. It was in the Chicago Tribune and it applied to the Chicago Cubs defeating the Cleveland Indians 4-3 on November 2nd, 2016, to win baseball’s World Series for the first time since 1908.
Merely three days later, it could just as easily have applied to Ireland beating New Zealand for the first time ever, after losing 27 and drawing one of the previous 28 meetings dating back to the first in 1905.
Even on mature recollection, it truly was a stand-out, history-breaking, rival-making result to complete a momentous, seismic week. For all the glory of the 2009 Grand Slam, and the Six Nations titles of 2014 and 2015, finally beating the All Blacks for the first time removed something of a stigma from Irish rugby. Nine years on and five wins apiece, that 40-29 win on November 5th, 2016, is largely why the two sides are back here in Chicago again.
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Many had tried – Drico, Paulie, Rog et al – but none had previously succeeded. Few could have appreciated the scale of the history more than Rob Kearney. He had been on a losing Irish side against New Zealand eight times, including a couple of painful near misses in Christchurch in 2012 and the Aviva Stadium in 2013.
“Personally, I was under an awful lot of pressure just before Chicago,” he recalled. “My body was in a bad way. It was breaking down an awful lot. And there were spikes out for my head.
“Listen, there might have been reasons for it. My form wasn’t there. Tiernan O’Halloran was playing very well for Connacht, Zeebs (Simon Zebo) was playing well for Munster, Jared Payne was playing well for Ulster and Isa (Nacewa) was playing well for Leinster. So, everyone had their corner they were fighting. And it felt at the time there wasn’t too many people fighting my corner!”
Payne had deputised for Kearney on the tour to South Africa and, coming back from injury, he had just one 20-minute outing off the bench for Leinster.
In training, then-Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt was swapping Kearney and others in and out of full-back. For the first time, he truly felt his position was under pressure.
“Then the team announcement on Monday morning and I was in. Delighted. But at the same time, I was not overly delighted that I was going to have to play the All Blacks in Chicago when physically I wasn’t great. And mentally I wasn’t in a good position. I just felt that everything was going against me personally, and the team a little bit.”
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He draws comparisons with this week because Ireland were undercooked then too, and the All Blacks had won the Rugby Championship as part of an 18-game winning streak.
“That’s what made it so special, and the whole history to it. But then selfishly I was able to pull a great performance out of the bag, when nothing really suggested I was going to. And it was just a real sweet moment afterwards on both fronts – the historic piece, but then individually to be able to put a decent game together.”
Kearney views the game in the Aviva Stadium in 2013 as “hugely instrumental” in the win three years later.
In 2013, the All Blacks held the ball for 3½ minutes before Ryan Crotty scored in overtime. Aaron Cruden’s retaken conversion ensured Ireland snatched a 24-22 defeat from the jaws of victory.
Thereafter, Schmidt introduced the “3½ minute drill”, be it attacking or defending without stopping at the end of every session.
“If you speak to any player on that 2013 team. ‘What was the three-and-a-half minute drill?’ They will be able to tell you straight off.”
The other lesson from 2013 was to keep playing. After Kearney’s intercept try made it 19-0 by the 19th minute, Ireland only added one more penalty, from Johnny Sexton, in the 34th minute.
“We sat on our laurels and we tried to protect our lead,” Kearney admits.
In Chicago, after tries by Jordi Murphy, CJ Stander, Conor Murray and Simon Zebo helped Ireland to lead 30-8 after 49 minutes, this was whittled down to 33-29 following a three-try blitz through TJ Perenara, Ben Smith and Scott Barrett.
“There would have been people in the stadium, and on the team, who would have been like ‘here we go again – this is just the All Blacks doing what they’re going to do’. But we kept attacking,” says Kearney.
“We got a scrum on our own 10-metre line and normally we would have just taken the safe-option exit. But we threw two great skip passes. Jared Payne threw a lovely ball to Zeebs on the edge. He kicked down the line and then myself, Murray, and Zeebs caught Julian Savea over the line. Five-metre scrum try. Within that one moment was the learning from three years before.”
Sure enough, Robbie Henshaw’s well-executed try off the ensuing strike play, converted by Joey Carbery on his debut, pushed Ireland into a 40-29 lead.
Running back to their own half, Kearney had shouted to stay switched on. Murray, cool as a breeze, looked up at the scoreboard. “And he goes: ‘They can’t f***ing win it now’.”
He continues: “My other memory was the quality of our preparation, which was honestly a two or a three out of 10. It was the poorest training sessions we’d had in a long, long time. On the Friday morning, Joe absolutely opened up on us before the captain’s run. ‘The All Blacks are going to put 40 or 50 points on you tomorrow if you produce the sort of rubbish that I’ve seen throughout the week’.”
But Kearney gives Schmidt huge credit for plotting the win.
“He’s always plotting and he had a good plan on the day, with a couple of really good set pieces. Robbie’s try was obviously a very good set piece. But he got us in a real good mental place.”
Two days before the game, Kearney recalls the Irish players looking out on the estimated five million people who descended on downtown Chicago to celebrate the Cubs’ win. Among the enormous crowd, they spotted the All Blacks players.
“We could just get a little bit of a sense that they were here on a little bit of a trip, a little holiday. Whereas we were there on business because we had to be. If we took our eye off the ball for a split second, that 50-point drubbing could have happened.”
The celebrations were epic for most but not for Kearney.
“I remember being absolutely physically and mentally exhausted. My mum and dad came over and back to the hotel. I couldn’t even finish my second bottle of beer and I went to bed.”
A fortnight later, helped by weak officiating by Jaco Peyper and his team, the All Blacks exacted a spiteful revenge.
“We poked the bear a little bit. But I’ll definitely look back on that day as really poor officiating. There were a few yellow cards that were definitely red.”
Kearney admits that ideally, he’d have preferred a first win over the All Blacks on home soil rather than Chicago. In November, 2018 – eight months after winning the Grand Slam – it came to pass. It did so with an equally memorable, if different, 16-9 win. Jacob Stockdale’s try stood out for the intelligence of its execution..
“That team was at the peak of their powers in November 2018. We played very well, but our defence on the day was incredible; set-piece very strong, discipline really good.”
Alas, as with so many careers, Kearney’s last of 95 Ireland Tests, and last of 12 against the All Blacks, was the 46-14 defeat in the 2019 World Cup quarter-final.
“It was a tough day but the damage was done a little bit earlier in that World Cup, losing to Japan. We’d done so much preparation for playing against South Africa in the quarter-final, in game plans, structures and strategies and whatnot.”
Ironically, there was still a strong belief within the squad.
“Our week’s preparation before that game was off-the-charts good. We went into the game really confident but we had a very slow start and once you give them any sort of a lead, it’s really hard to claw back.”
Looking back on that win in Soldier Field in 2016, Kearney still struggles in ranking it.
“The Grand Slam in 2009 in Cardiff is number one and then I get torn between Chicago and Twickenham 2018,” he says in reference to sealing that Grand Slam on a icy-cold St Patrick’s Day in Twickenham and, like Soldier Field, being able to savour The Fields of Athenry late in the game.
And so to the next instalment.
“I think we’re definitely up against it. They’re so battle-hardened,” says Kearney of the All Blacks. “Do I think they’re playing amazing? No, I don’t think they’re playing particularly well. I think it’s definitely in Andy Farrell’s favour that Leinster got such a kick up the backside last week, for players, environment, coaches, everybody who’s affected.
“You’ve got Munster lads now pushing for spots full of energy, full of confidence, and when you’re coming back at the start of the season, particularly off a Lions tour and everything’s rosy in the garden, it’s great getting a kick up the backside.”
Either way, all has changed, changed utterly since that day in Soldier Field nine years ago.
“There’s no rivalry unless you go to a game without a genuine feeling that either side can win. And we always said that the All Blacks never respected us until we won as a team, as a rugby nation. And that’s true.
“And why should they? But I think in the last number of years, the five [wins] out of ten, they do respect us now as a rugby nation.”
Now it is a rivalry.
