Kidney’s team to face New Zealand in the second test in Christchurch bears all the hallmarks of a damage limitation exercise – the hatches have been well and truly battened down. If the team for the first test looked designed to have a cut and try to play fast and loose, this has the looks of a rainy-day selection designed to muck in in the trenches and keep the score down.  With Earls missing through injury and Mike Ross back fit, two changes were inevitable.  Kidney has made two more, with Andrew Trimble replacing Simon Zebo and Leinster’s Kevin McLaughlin replacing Peter O’Mahony.

Conor Murray wins this week’s Fortunate Starter Hailing From Munster Of The Week Award; presumably his defensive strengths have kept him in the team (in keeping with the theme of keeping the score down) beccause it can’t have been his service to the backline, which hasn’t been good for Ireland since the World Cup match against Italy.  He and Sexton just don’t look like a happy partnership, but Kidney is determined to persist with it.

By contrast, Simon Zebo is a touch unlucky – after being fast-tracked into the squad and team, it’s hardly sensible (or a ringing endorsement) to be dropped after your first cap.  Andrew Trimble takes his place on the left wing, when he’s more used to the right, and was the obvious choice to deal with the threat of Savea.  The Ulster wing is a physical, commited defender and has much more experience on the right wing than McFadden (who has played 11, 12 and 13 more often than 14).  Trimble (14) and Zebo (11) looked a more balanced pairing, and Zebo’s absence – coupled with that of Earls – robs the backline of its only source of top-line speed. Still, as Deccie says:

We could (switch), but left wing and right are two totally different positions, so if you’re exposed on the right you’re definitely going to be exposed on the left.

If the positions are so different, why are the players not playing in the roles with which they are most familiar?  Answers on a postcard please.

By all means pick your best defenders, but at some point they will break our line and we’ll have to scramble; pace is an asset in defence as well as attack.  Again, we have a centre playing out of position on the wing while real wings twiddle their thumbs – New Zealand will doubtlessly attack Ferg again, so we have to hope he has learned the harsh lessons from the first test. There was no need to drop him altogether – he could have moved inside, which brings us neatly to ….

Gordon D’arcy, who has a chance to show he’s not done and dusted yet.  Will we see the D’arcy who looked a busted flush in the Six Nations, or the one who took flat ball over the gainline in the Heineken Cup final, and had a double-digit tackle count in the semi-final? Lets hope its the latter, but either way, it’s a retrograde step in the long-term development of the team.

McLaughlin looks a good pick, and deserves a chance to show what he can do after an excellent season with Leinster.  He’s one of those who might get caught in between being a great provincial servant, and a test level rugby player, but unfashionable workhorses can surprise on the upside too.  He’s been cast as Leinster’s Jean Bouilhou before – now he has to become Ireland’s Tom Wood.

This is a team that gives Ireland no chance of winning the game, even if everyone plays out of their skin.   With a one-paced backline, the biggest backrow available and mismatched, but robust half-backs, it’s hard to see where Ireland can hurt New Zillund.  Squad development has also taken a back seat, with all four changes significantly increasing the age profile of the team.  The tour has become about avoiding embarrassment, getting the games out of the way and getting home with what little dignity can be salvaged – Deccie will consider a defeat by less than 32 points a moral victory.  Ian Madigan and Craig Gilroy might be better off at home after all.

We must admit that was one of the more enjoyable of the long list of Ireland defeats of the last 3 years. Ireland actually played reasonably well in patches, and they had a fresh feel; most of all, New Zealand are a joy to watch – despite being outplayed in the World Cup final, they are easily the best team in the world, and they show you just how far away from that level Ireland, and Irish rugby, truly is. The remainder of the series is likely to further illustrate the point, but this series has the potential to kick-start the Irish team again, assuming we have the ability to take something away from it.

Here are some specific talking points:

All Blacks Bloody New Zealand: Matty is right – to beat them, humanise them, don’t put them on a pedestal. But that’s only the starting point. As he said after Saturday’s game, Ireland’s selection, intensity, tactics, precision and performance were at unacceptable levels to compete with BNZ.

While it was great to see selection on form (in most positions), there remain some questions. The lack of a bigger picture strategy means that you don’t sense the Ireland squad know where they are going – are the newbies going to be ditched after a few games (see: 2010 tour), or will they play every minute thereafter (Rosser and SOB 2010-11)? Picking players out of position, like Ferg on the wing, might work in the Six Nations, but it will be exposed at this altitude – it doesn’t benefit anyone. Intensity was ok, but tactics and execution (precision) weren’t – Ireland appeared set up to play expansive football, but picked a scrum half who box kicked too much – what’s the point? On performance, this was probably a 7.5/10 effort from Ireland, and they lost by 32 points. That is a fair reflection of the 8th best team playing the best. If we pulled out a South Africa 2009 performance (our best under Deccie), we would probably still have lost by 15. We’re not at their level, but we won’t come close without clarity of purpose.

Ireland’s Tighthead Crisis ™: is not a crisis at all. Well, it should probably be described as a crisis of opportunity, not existence. Declan Fitzpatrick stepped into Mike Ross’s size 20s and produced a pretty creditable performance – the scrum was locked tight and he even put in a few tackles. Fitzpatrick has the classic shape for a tighthead – slim shoulders, barrel chest and athletic hips – and he finally realised some of his potential on Saturday.

Even if Ross if fit for the second test, it might be worth throwing Fitzpatrick back in, provided his hamstrings are 100% – it’s a position where we need depth, and he offers enough relative to Ross to not lose too much. Getting back to opportunity, if Ireland really want to develop more tightheads and give opportunities to the likes of Fitzpatrick in the future, perhaps the IRFU should think about implementing a rule to restrict foreign imports in key positions? What? Oh.

Key Pack Leaders: In the absence of Fez and Paul O’Connell, it was imperative that some of the other forwards stepped up and assumed leadership roles. And Donnacha Ryan did exactly that – he had a good aggressive game and was at least the second best lock on the field. Its amazing to think that Ryan is now a key man in the team, yet this was the very first test where he was indisputably one of the first choice locks (he deputised for an injured O’Connell in the 6N) – let’s hope we bring similarly talented players through quicker in the future – Ryan is nearly 29, and realistically only has one full RWC cycle in him.

Jamie Heaslip at 8 was among Ireland’s best players – he didn’t look out of his depth facing Kieran Read and adapted his game well to cover some of the weaknesses of those around him, but is still not at his best in attack.  Best, O’Brien and Healy also fought gamely.

Golden Dawn: It was a mixed day for those swept in by the new broom – Deccie Fitz did well and Keith Earls’ performance alongside BOD had plenty of positives – but now he’s out of the tour. In the debit column, Simon Zebo had a difficult day despite showing some spark in the first half. His role in Savea’s 3rd try looks worse with every viewing (Kearney’s contribution wasn’t much better), and his one handed-carrying style is predictable. Still, he survived, just about – in spite of our reservations, there is no point in dropping him now, let’s see what he learned next day out.

Dan Tuohy had a difficult day at the office – the step up was stark and he struggled for air. Again, he has bags of potential, let’s keep him in there, his career path has been upward sloping for the last 4 years, there is little benefit to be gained by turning back to Stakhanov.

Peter O’Mahony was shown up by Adam Thompson for his try – his weak left shoulder has long been highlighted, and unless he fixes it, he is not going to be international class, no matter how much Farrelly, Hook and their chums in the meeja want him to be.  He has much to commend him as a player, but test blindsides need to be men of granite who will take no backward step – think of Stephen Ferris or Dan Lydiate – and simply cannot have such an obvious tackling weakness. 

Darren Cave had a distastrous first taste of top class international rugby, ushering Smuddy in for the final try and any other referee would have binned him for the pull on Ben Smith. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, we hope this isn’t it for him – he was trying too hard, and a more relaxed Cave (coming on for Earls, he looked like he had seen a ghost) the next day has to be better.

Ward/Campbell Elwood/Humphreys O’Gara/Humphreys Sexton/O’Gara: What is it about the Irish and tiresome stand-offs for the out-half shirt? Well, for all intents and purposes, the current one is over – Sexton has started 6 games in a row, and is coming off a season as the stand-out 10 in Europe. His rival, the great Ronan O’Gara, is 35 and is coming off his worst season to date –  for the first time, people in Munster are questioning his value to the side.

So why is he coming in with 25 minutes to go when Sexton had been doing ok? Why not bring in Eoin Reddan and let the Leinster halves unleash what they have been doing in Europe? We take nothing ROG has done for Ireland for granted, but he was never going to be able to make an impact in this sort of game.  We really hope its not the coach appeasing the bellicose Rog, and thinking it’s better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. In O’Gara’s autobiography, he said himself how he never could fully settle and give 100% to Ireland while Eddie was hauling him off on the hour mark – Deccie should listen to him.

We don’t normally do long and winding posts, but we have given some structure to a shared stream of conciousness that has been around for about 24 hours now. Lets see how it plays out…