Sloppy Ireland open tour with heavy defeat to Maori All Blacks

Maori All Blacks 32 Ireland 17

Back at the scene of the crime a decade on, this wasn’t quite on the scale of the 60-0 Hamilton horror show, but even so it was a chastening night for what amounted to an Irish A side. Unsurprisingly, the scale of this defeat to a potent and skilful, if youthful, Maori All Blacks side glaringly exposed the contrasting depth chart in New Zealand and Irish rugby, while also setting this tour off on a low note.

The defeat came at a significant cost, too, notably with second-half injuries to James Hume, Jimmy O’Brien and Cian Healy, as well as what appeared to be a concussion for Jeremy Loughman which meant that Tom O’Toole had to go the full 80 and Finlay Bealham had to play the endgame at loosehead.

The prop depth looks particularly worrying, all the more so given the sight of Cian Healy’s right leg twisting and buckling under him horribly. The apparent leg injuries sustained by O’Brien and Hume, especially, were not good either.

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[ Maori All Blacks 32 Ireland 17 (FT) as it happened ]

[ Maori All Blacks vs Ireland player ratings ]

Perhaps both understandably and predictably, this was a very uneven performance, both collectively and individually. The scrum was marched back on occasions, the lineout creaked under pressure, and Ireland suffered at the breakdown and in the collisions. Yet what threatened to be a rout didn’t materialise as Ireland kept the Maoris scoreless in the second half, albeit the game was up by half-time.

There was much to admire in some of Ireland’s aggressive line speed, although it left them vulnerable to the Maori sleight of hand and lines of running.

With Ciarán Frawley pulling the strings, and even more when Joey Carbery came on as a second playmaker, Ireland produced some nice passages of running rugby in the mould of the Test team, if often losing control of the slippery pill.

Frawley looked what he is, extremely talented but rusty as an outhalf. Some of his running and the timing of his passes were a delight, but a couple of attempted crosskicks looked ill-advised and pre-planned rather than truly instinctive. In tandem with O’Brien, Ireland’s kicking game was poor, and the latter’s kick toward the gifted Zarn Sullivan, who has a James Lowe-like left boot, led to three of the Maoris’ four first-half tries.

The work-rate of Joe McCarthy and Kieran Treadwell typified the desire which this team brought to the occasion. The two locks never stopped looking for work and the 21-year-old McCarthy will invariably become more productive with experience.

Cian Prendergast stayed in the hunt manfully, but his ticking off from Wayne Barnes for continually chasing lost causes at the breakdown highlighted a penchant for giving away penalties which he needs to rectify. Gavin Coombes was arguably Ireland’s best player, creating one try, scoring another and never stopped showing or carrying, while similarly Bundee Aki never stopped leading from the front.

Prior to the pre-match Maori haka, Aki laid an Irish jersey with the number ‘11′ on its back in tribute to Sean Wainui, the former Chiefs and Maori left winger who died at the age of 25 in a car crash last October, and which was accepted by his wife and two kids.

In truth, for all the glaring menace of the haka, this was a far from a hostile atmosphere. The unusually warm and sunny weather of recent days gave way to a more typical day of incessantly heavy rain, but while the sand-based Waikato Stadium pitch held up as well as ever, the crowd looked to be barely one-third of the 25,800 capacity.

After opening penalties by Frawley and Josh Ioane, O’Brien’s rather aimless kick was returned by Sullivan with an arrowing 50:22 into the corner, and from the resulting pressure the fullback stepped inside Prendergast. Ireland responded misleadingly well, Nick Timoney moved lineout ball infield and Coombes drew two men for a good finish by Aki.

But thereafter Ireland fell apart. The aggressive line speed led to a second penalty by Ioane before the Maoris struck with three more tries, the first and third again emanating from O’Brien kicking to Sullivan.

First Billy Proctor’s pull back exposed another disconnect in the Irish defence, Ioane speeding through a big gap to put winger Shaun Stevenson over. Next the Irish defence narrowed up for Rameka Poihipi to make inroads before Brad Weber sniped over untouched. Then, in the last play of the half, Sullivan fielded another high kick down the middle by O’Brien and took the latter’s tackle to feed Stevenson, who accelerated to leave Coombes, Prendergast and Craig Casey flailing in his wake, before Billy Harmon controlled his poor pass to send number eight Cullen Grace over.

By half-time the game was won and lost.

To their credit, the Irish team resumed with renewed intent and responded well to the loss of Loughman, whose 13th minute return from a second minute head knock was not a good look given he needed to lean on the physio for support, as well as Hume, O’Brien and subsequently Healy.

Prendergast was held up over the line and Timoney was just short of it early in the second quarter. It would have been nice to see Ireland gamble on more than one-off runners with penalty advantages close to the line in that spell, for there were subsequently some nice passages of attacking rugby either side of Coombes earning some reward for his strong second-half display with a close-range finish.

There might have been more reward too but Frawley overcooked his penalty into the corner, which rather summed up the uneven and frustrating performance.

SCORING SEQUENCE – 5 mins: Frawley pen, 0-3; 8: Ioane pen, 3-3; 17: Z Sullivan try 8-3; 21: Aki try, Frawley con 8-10; 28: Ioane pen, 11-10; 29: Stevenson try, Ioane con, 18-10; 39: Weber try, Ioane con, 25-10; 40: Grace try, Ioane con 32-10; (half-time 32-10); 67 mins Coombes try, Frawley con 32-17.

MAORI ALL BLACKS: Zarn Sullivan (Auckland/Blues); Shaun Stevenson (North Harbour/Chiefs), Billy Proctor (Wellington/Hurricanes), Rameka Poihipi (Canterbury/Chiefs), Connor Garden-Bachop (Wellington/Highlanders); Josh Ioane (Otago/Chiefs), Brad Weber (Hawkes Bay/Chiefs, co-capt); Ollie Norris (Waikato/Chiefs), Kurt Eklund (Bay of Plenty/Blues), Tyrel Lomax (Tasman/Hurricanes); Josh Dickson (Otago/Highlanders), Isaia Walker-Leawere (Hawkes Bay/Hurricanes); Cameron Suafoa (North Harbour/Blues), Billy Harmon (Canterbury/Highlanders), Cullen Grace (Canterbury /Crusaders).

Replacements: TJ Perenara (Wellington/Hurricanes, co-capt) for Weber, Bailyn Sullivan (Waikato/Hurricanes) for Stevenson (both 50 mins), Jermaine Ainsley (Otago /Highlanders) for Lomax (54), Tamaiti Williams (Canterbury/Crusaders) for Norris, Maanaki Selby-Rickit (Bay of Plenty/Highlanders) for Dixon (both 62), TK Howden (Manawatu/Hurricanes) for Suafoa, Ruben Love (Wellington/Hurricanes) for Ioane (68), Tyrone Thompson (Hawkes Bay/Chiefs) for Eklund (69).

IRELAND: Jimmy O’Brien (Leinster); Jordan Larmour (Leinster), James Hume (Ulster), Bundee Aki (Connacht, capt), Keith Earls (Munster); Ciarán Frawley (Leinster), Craig Casey (Munster); Jeremy Loughman (Munster), Dave Heffernan (Connacht), Tom O’Toole (Ulster); Kieran Treadwell (Ulster), Joe McCarthy (Leinster); Cian Prendergast (Connacht), Nick Timoney (Ulster), Gavin Coombes (Munster).

Replacements: Cian Healy (Leinster) for Loughman (2-13 mins and half-time), Michael Lowry (Ulster) for Hume (50), Niall Scannell (Munster) for Heffernan, Ryan Baird (Leinster) for Treadwell (both 52), Joey Carbery (Munster) for O’Brien (61), Finlay Bealham (Connacht) for O’Toole (70), Jack Conan (Leinster) for Coombes (80). Unused: Conor Murray (Munster).

Referee: Wayne Barnes (RFU).