The last image on leaving a sunny and shiny Eden Park was of Johnny Sexton passing rugby balls to Sam Prendergast for the outhalf to land a procession of drop goals from outside the ten-metre line.
For both men and the rest of the Irish present in Eden Park, Auckland, when they face the All Blacks on Saturday (kick-off 7.10pm local time/8.10am Irish) a reprise of that as the lasting image of the match would do nicely.
Prendergast will be winning his 17th cap in this game. It’s still worth remembering that not only is he still 23, but that Sexton was 24 when he made his Ireland debut.
The young Irish outhalf has been through quite a rollercoaster in that time. His resurgence from a trying period in his fledgling career, when losing his place in the Irish 23 for the final three rounds of the Six Nations and Leinster’s match day squad for the Champions Cup final, is testimony to his temperament as well as talent.
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He regained his place as Leinster’s starting outhalf in their three URC knock-out wins over the Lions, Stormers and the Bulls – when man of the match in the final – and he carried that form into Ireland’s win over Australia.
“Sam’s unbelievable, how mentally strong he is off the back of a lot of attention and criticism,” ventured the Irish captain Dan Sheehan as Prendergast was practising his kicking after their prematch run-out in Eden Park.
“His preparation every week, he leads meetings, he chirps up for a young ten, he runs training sessions, he barks at people, reminds me of someone else in a lot of ways, and we all have Sam’s back 100 per cent, and Sam has his own back I think, which is the main thing. So, Sam will be perfectly fine.”
Naturally enough, Eden Park looked resplendent and not remotely intimidating as the players’ banter echoed around the empty stadium, when one of them could be heard describing the surface as “beautiful”.
“There’s no excuses there, and something that hopefully will bring a good style to rugby,” said Sheehan.
“It’s been very greasy with the dew and stuff but that’s just winter rugby. That’s something we can’t control and it’s probably something we’ve mentioned every single training session is to make sure we look after the ball.
“At this time of year, it gets greasy even on a good day so that’s just part of it.”
Of course, the mecca of New Zealand will seem like a different world come kick-off time when they set about defending their 52-game, 32-year unbeaten run here.
Being the team to end that run is also the biggest one-off prize of the end of the season at the campaign’s end.
“I think everyone’s excited,” said Sheehan. “It’s been in the calendar for a while, so yeah, it’s a great occasion and a great opportunity for us to finish the season off on a high.”
Yet the Irish captain also said the All Blacks’ amazing run at this ground was not something the players had actually spoken about this week, and when asked why they were not focusing on the record Sheehan explained: “I suppose we’re very performance driven. We don’t need a whole lot of motivating factors. We think that the Irish jersey does it for us and we’re very proud to represent our people at home and the group that we have here.
“That’s the sort of emotion we’ve gone after this week. That’s probably similar to how we’ve done it in campaigns past. I think we’ve focused on making sure that we do the people proud back home and all the support we’ll have tomorrow.
“That’s just the way we’ve shaped the week, shaped the last campaign, is to make sure that we’re representing the people back home.”
Being part of the first Irish side to win on New Zealand soil when they won the second Test in Dunedin four years ago en route to winning the series is the highlight of Sheehan’s career against the All Blacks
We’ll be looking to recreate that. We have a new group here, a lot of lads weren’t on that tour, so we’ve got to sort of make our own history in that way.”
As the final game of the season, Sheehan agreed that this does have the feel of a final to it.
“Yeah, I suppose it’s win or lose. Last game of the season, you can leave it all out there and you don’t have to worry about bumps and bruises for the next week, so we’ll come out firing and hopefully leave the bodies of the fish.”
So often touring sides can become mentally distracted by the thought of a game being seasonal finale, with holidays already booked, albeit the scale of this task should focus Irish minds.
“If we have one toe on the plane, I think we’ll be in trouble tomorrow,” said Sheehan. “It’s set up so perfectly for us. We’ve been frustrated with maybe some of our performances this year, and to have this opportunity to make sure that our last game you can go out on a high, hopefully, and come out with a good performance, I think lads are edging to go. I don’t think anyone wants to go on their holidays until Saturday night. Yeah, I think everyone’s buzzed.”
