Cane reveals how All Blacks can claim World Cup crown
SPOTLIGHT: New Zealand’s defensive display in victory over Ireland was nothing short of outstanding, setting a benchmark of patience and discipline in a game for the ages that moved them one step closer to the World Cup final.
Many pundits had forecast victory for the top-ranked Irish, who triumphed in a series on New Zealand last soil last year, a historical first which sat among a series of lows for the All Blacks since Ian Foster became head coach in 2019.
However, the three-time Webb Ellis Cup winners produced a massive 276 tackles in their heart-stopping 28-24 win over the Irish that set up a semifinal against Argentina at the Stade de France on Friday.
It may be an old adage, but ‘defence wins championships’ is one that strikes especially true in modern-day rugby union where try-scoring razzmatazz is often diluted the higher up the food chain one goes in tournament settings.
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All Blacks skipper Sam Cane backed that paradigm, simply saying: “Defence won us the Test match.
“History shows that teams that win World Cups are very good defensively,” Cane said.
“It is our benchmark going forward.”
Unflappable No.8 Ardie Savea said the team had been “really patient and disciplined” in the closing minutes of a pulsating quarterfinal when Ireland went through a remarkable 37 phases of play in search of a score.
“It could have gone the other way but for us to go D [defence] for the last five minutes was pretty special,” Savea said.
‘Harsh lessons’
New Zealand, with 100 tackles made in the final 15 minutes, held firm and bided their time, 151-Test veteran Sam Whitelock eventually pouncing for the All Blacks’ 11th, and most crucial, turnover of the match.
“The most impressive thing is the control and mental resilience,” centre Jordie Barrett said.
“We’ve got a defence system there that Scott McLeod has built – we built it basically for Ireland. It was just our system working and obviously some great ticker in that last play.”
All Blacks coach Ian Foster said “We were disciplined, we held our cool.
“With Scott McLeod and Joe Schmidt helping him, we have been building our system and how we want to defend. We are making some strides in that space and I was delighted,” Foster said.
“One mistake and the game could have gone the other way. But you haven’t been to a World Cup if you haven’t had a game like that.
“That is what World Cups are about – you’ve got to roll your sleeves up and trust what you do.”
Defence coach McLeod said that “harsh lessons” from last year’s historic home series loss to Ireland had led to a re-build of the All Black’s defensive fundamentals.
McLeod heaped praise on the team’s defensive execution and decision-making in the closing minutes.
“The ball wasn’t there to take a number of times and we had to wait for the moment and then execute really well,” he said.
The focus now, McLeod added, was not to go from the high of that scintillating victory over Ireland to a flat semi-final, as happened in Japan four years ago when they went down to England in the last-four.
Attention to detail and raising energy levels for the Argentina game were key to producing a top performance, he said, echoing flyhalf Richie Mo’unga’s thoughts after the quarter-final.
“We played Ireland, the best in the world. We knew we didn’t have to be the best in the world, we just had to be the best on the day.”
