All Blacks intent on correcting their own shortcomings

Ireland may be immersed in their best camp since Michael Kearney was appointed Irish team manager. Sweet mood music in Carton House.

But Steve Hansen's bedroom is no chamber of horrors as New Zealand may have both of their preferred secondrows, Sam Whitelock and Brodie Retallick, back on the paddock to face Ireland.

World Player of the Year in 2014, Retallick missed the Ireland game because of concussion, Whitelock also missed out due to an ankle injury.

Both are game-changing ball winners and midfield targets for New Zealand, altogether a different challenge for whatever secondrow combination Joe Schmidt selects for Saturday's match.

Retallick is fit to play and Whitelock is on target for making the pitch.

"Yeah, he did what he had to do," says assistant coach Ian Foster of Whitelock's progress. "We had a plan for him in terms of progressing him to full training. He got through that plan well.

“You got to understand that there are steps that you take with an athlete coming back. Today he had a reasonable load put on him so now we’ve got to wait and see how he responds to that load.

“That will determine what the next step is; whether he can go full steam on Thursday or whether he doesn’t quite make it. He did what he had to do today.”

To that backdrop, Foster was measured about the prevailing mood in the camp. There was little of the bullet-proof certainty that sometimes accompanies All Black conversation. But nor does he believe the Chicago defeat has shrunken belief, or undermined confidence.

An edge

The team mental position has shifted somewhat but it has moved laterally not down to a lower place where he and coach Steve Hansen have had to roster in the team psychologist. The All Blacks are chastened, maybe punctured but far from deflated.

Knowing the psychological ground too well, Foster is careful to be respectful about Ireland, although, he seems pretty disgusted at the 25-point “head start” they handed over.

But listen to the echo of what he says and it is that New Zealand fell short of their standards. The problem is theirs alone. Like Serena Williams after a defeat in tennis, her shortcomings, not the ability of the opposition is what usually beats her. She is often the sole author of her own undoing.

“I think we know we are playing a team that has beaten us recently,” says Foster. “So when you look at your confidence I still think we are confident in what we do but there’s a nice  nervousness about it and we know that if we don’t front up and play to the best of our ability we know it is going to be a long night. To be honest it’s a good feeling.

“It’s a nice edge and it forces us to dig a bit deeper and make us prepare to the degree that we take a lot of pride in doing and probably didn’t do that good a job of in Chicago.

“Yep. These are great weeks,” he adds. “There’s an edge in the air. We love preparing for big Test matches. I guess what’s happened in Chicago has just added a little bit more seasoning to it, hasn’t it? The boys are in a good spot. We’re following our normal process but there is a bit of an edge, yeah.”

They know the Irish team well. They know Jared Payne particularly well.

“The one that got away,” quips Foster. It’s as much flattery as Payne will get today.

"Yeah, I've played with him at the Blues and also against him when he was at the Crusaders and very proud to see him running out in Irish colours," adds Jerome Kaino.

“But I wouldn’t say proud in Chicago when he beat us. As a friend I was proud but we’ll have to shut him down this weekend.”

They also know Schmidt well and they know Pat Lam well.

A theory could easily develop around Ireland becoming as Kiwi as the All Blacks in their current development and style.

Forward machine

Sweeping aside Andy Farrell’s immense influence, the team could easily succumb to the euphoria of

Soldier Field

and use the Irish prerogative in these matters, of taking the attractive option.

But that theory wouldn’t be shared by Foster. Because that would be mystically aligning Ireland in some way alongside the peerless All Blacks, which is not in their thinking. Or is it?

“It’s still very much an Irish style of rugby I think,” says Foster. “They got big strong forwards and they like their line speed and they like to control the game through their kicking game. But it’s all the little subtleties that everyone has at this level that you are trying to sort out.

“So they’re a team and know their game pretty well now and trust it and they have done pretty well with it and funnily enough that is how you probably would have described us before Chicago.”

With Retallick and Whitelock, Ireland will expect a more voracious forward machine. Foster says, apart from short phases, they didn’t get a chance “to play at” Ireland. Their leaders didn’t show in swing moments of the match. They were mortal in the set piece. They didn’t “problem solve” often enough or fast enough.

Not as perfunctory but, as Serena might say, this week the All Blacks will try not to lose.