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Rugby World Cup 2019
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New Zealand’s Richie Mo’unga (centre) and Sevu Reece (right) celebrate scoring a try during their Rugby World Cup quarter-final win over Ireland. Photo: EPA

All Blacks on course to become unusual breed of World Cup winners in Japan

  • Youthful New Zealand side trounce Ireland in Tokyo
  • All Blacks will be big favourites in the semi-finals against England
The Ireland team have been staying at the Disney resort here in Tokyo, and their Rugby World Cup hopes were placed firmly in the realms of fantasy on Saturday by a New Zealand side playing with an almost childlike abandon.

It sounds unreal now, but the pre-quarter-final belief in the green camp that they had succeeded in demystifying the All Blacks had sounded credible – even heard in a hotel reached by Disney Line trains with windows the shape of Mickey Mouse silhouettes and surrounded by fellow guests walking around in furry clip-on ears.

Yet all the Irish had done, by inflicting New Zealand’s signature defeats of recent years, was help create new monsters.

The defending champions are chasing a third successive crown powered by what they don’t know as well as what they do. Since losing to Ireland for the first time ever in Chicago in 2016, and again in Dublin last year, they have scrambled themselves into a puzzle neither the Irish nor their semi-final opponents England have solved before.

Only four of their line-up remain from their last defeat by England in 2012, only five starters from Chicago are still around, and only six survive from Dublin. The Irish, meanwhile, brought 12 of the same starters from last year – it would have been 13 had Bundee Aki not been suspended – and precious few new ideas. Compare and contrast.

“The All Blacks remember the defeats more than we do the victories,” head coach Steve Hansen said after Saturday’s thumping win, adding that his assistant coach Ian Foster had taken their attacking game “to a new level” in recent months. Several of their players had not expected to be part of it: at their hotel in the capital during the week, fly half Richie Mo’unga and wingers Sevu Reece and George Bridge all admitted as much.

It’s a different group now. There’s a little bit of fearlessness about them
Ian Foster, New Zealand assistant coach

With 21 caps between the three of them and centre Jack Goodhue adding only another 11, the four Crusaders form part of a formidable new guard. They go against the grain of how teams usually win a World Cup – settled combinations, long on experience – but these babyfaced Blacks’ inexperience is also a strength.

“You have to be careful talking about experience just because someone has been playing for a long time,” Hansen said post-match. “A lot of them have been involved in championship-winning teams [the past three Super Rugby titles, in the Crusaders’ case], and that’s why you can select them in confidence.”

Announcing their selection on Thursday, Hansen had voiced considerably less anxiety about them performing than about how Nature Strip, the racehorse he co-owns, would fare in the Everest in Sydney five hours before kick-off in Tokyo.

After the laps of honour and with the stadium emptying, half a dozen Crusaders players formed their own huddle for a debrief. Mo’unga revealed later that they were expressing the belief, gained together in Christchurch, that they will take into the clash with England.

“We’ve had exposure to big matches, but it’s just footy, still the same game with the same rules,” he said afterwards of Canterbury’s serial winners.

“We changed a lot of things in the last 12 months because we had to, after some performances last year that we’re not proud of,” Foster had said 24 hours earlier. “It’s a different group now. There’s a little bit of fearlessness about them.”

Asked about the threat next weekend of Jonny May, the in-form England wing, Bridge replied, chuckling: “Yeah, he’s pretty quick, isn’t he?” The genuine lack of concern was palpable.

There was a time when the Kiwis toured Britain and Ireland so infrequently, and were so far superior, that a mystique grew around them in those isles. Ireland finally proved in Chicago that they were mortal, but stirred a beast.

Johnny Sexton was the only Ireland player to visit Tokyo Stadium before Saturday’s match; not only were the surroundings unfamiliar to the rest of them, but New Zealand, too, were unrecognisable. To see Rory Best, Iain Henderson, Peter O’Mahony, Sexton and Rob Kearney – Ireland’s spine – slumped in a row on the bench after an hour, 34-0 down and subbed off, was to see Hansen’s caution about experience made flesh. They knew better than anyone that they had spurred New Zealand into regenerating themselves.

Hansen’s horse finished fourth in Sydney earlier on Saturday, but had been an outsider. His other thoroughbreds, also now guaranteed a top-four finish and taking on their own Everest, are anything but.

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