Rob Kearney admits Ireland have to back up Chicago win

The American writer Norman Cousins once observed that "history is a vast early warning system." On that note the Ireland rugby team might care to be selective in their lesson plan ahead of Saturday's Test match against New Zealand at the Aviva stadium.

In 2012 Ireland ran the All Blacks close in Christchurch, losing 22-19 in the second Test, but seven days later ran into a 60-0 thumping in Hamilton. Ireland fullback Rob Kearney was a participant in a chastening experience and when invited to recall his memory of the game, he did so with a little gallows humour.

"The only thing I remember in that game is constantly being under our sticks. There was a try every few minutes at least. That was a tough night. I remember Romain Poite sin-binned me, it wasn't a yellow card, but I remember thinking, 'Jeez, I'd be happy enough just to stay here for the rest of the game'.

“It was an awful night and it just shows that if you poke the bear (you have to be prepared for the reaction). We came really close to them in Christchurch, a game we probably should have closed out. There was a backlash then and there’ll be another one this week.”

Ireland's victory in Chicago, for the first time in the 111 years of matches between the countries is without precedent, so in the vacuum there is a tussle between wariness and justifiable confidence. Perhaps though, an honest appraisal of the events at Soldier Field, is the most salient legacy.

Kearney subscribed to that viewpoint: “It is really important that we’re honest about where we are too. I think they (New Zealand) played pretty poorly, albeit we didn’t give them a huge amount of ball to work with, put them under pressure and we forced some errors. It wasn’t the New Zealand that we had been used to seeing throughout The Rugby Championship.

“Their lineout was poor. Some of their handling was pretty poor. They conceded five tries in the whole Championship and we score five against them. If we’re being honest, it wasn’t the New Zealand that we’ve all come to know. It’s really important that we, as a group, recognise and understand that.

“We’ll take a huge amount of confidence from knowing there are areas we can improve on too. There were times when we could have done things a hell of a lot better. Before (against New Zealand) we always believed we could beat them and, if we were on our day, we could match them.

“But, now we know. There is a difference. You do have a huge amount of belief, but you can never categorically say 100 per cent. Now, we know we can because we’ve done it.”

He admitted that there wasn’t a huge sense of jubilation after the win in Chicago, more a quiet satisfaction.

“It was probably a little anti-climactic on the Saturday evening. There was a huge amount of tiredness, not just physically, but mentally draining of the whole thing.

“There is a little bit of a come down. There is a little relief too. You are trying something for, I don’t know, the ninth or 10th time playing them. When you try (to do) something for such a long time, when you finally do it, there is that level of excitement and joy, but then that relief too.”

New Zealand were gracious in the aftermath. “They were pretty humble in defeat and it was probably something that a lot of us were looking out for to see just exactly how they were going to react. We had a really quick post-match function with them and Rory [Best] spoke about how wounded they would be and how impressed we were as a group with how they accepted the defeat.

“But we knew they were going to come really strong. As a group, we recognised that straight away, that the New Zealand that’s going to come on Saturday is guaranteed to be different to the one that was in Chicago. We just need to make sure that Ireland is different too.”

He admitted that losing on Saturday would take a bit of the gloss off the win in Chicago. It wouldn’t change the fact that for the players involved that day they would be able to look back with pride when their careers were over but it would add grist to the mill that Ireland struggle to follow-up on top quality displays.

“Sometimes Irish teams in the past may have been guilty of getting up for one game, putting in a massive performance and not turning up the following week. If we want to be really successful down the line, and compete really strongly at World Cups, you need to back it up five, six, seven weeks on the bounce. And there’s no more perfect time than now.”