Ireland fired up to make history
ONLY two Ulster players are in Ireland’s starting line-up for tomorrow night’s titanic clash with the All Blacks at what will be a highly charged Aviva Stadium (7.00pm).
Skipper Rory Best and winger Jacob Stockdale are the pair in Joe Schmidt’s team as Ireland bid to beat New Zealand for only the second time after the men’s senior side made history by taking their scalp in Chicago two years ago.
Best led Ireland at Soldier Field in 2016 when the men in green famously triumphed 40-29 and the 36-year-old will badly want to be part of the first Ireland side to down the All Blacks on Irish soil.
The long-serving hooker will also need to deliver a command performance after coming in for criticism following last weekend’s scrappy 2817 victory over Argentina.
This will be Stockdale’s first tilt at the All Blacks as Ireland, the Six Nations champions and ranked number two in the world, do battle with the back-to-back World Cup holders who hold top spot in the rankings.
Schmidt has made four changes to his side from last week. Ireland’s Kiwi coach has dropped second row Iain Henderson to the bench in a swap with Devin Toner while centre Garry Ringrose comes in for Will Addison — a late call-up for the Pumas Test after Robbie Henshaw’s withdrawal — who has not been included in the 23-man squad.
Elsewhere, the experienced Rob Kearney comes in at full-back instead of the now benched Jordan Larmour and flanker Dan Leavy is in for the injured Sean O’Brien.
The last time the sides met, two years ago just after Ireland’s Chicago glory, the All Blacks won 21-9 in Dublin and the rivals could also clash again at next autumn’s World Cup.
MOST mornings, he doesn’t need to recall what it was like playing the All Blacks as Maurice Field carries a constant reminder of going up against them or, to be more specific, an encounter with a then still unknown winger called Jonah Lomu.
The now 54-year-old former Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service officer had a rib rearranged by a 19-year-old Lomu in Ireland’s opening pool game of the 1995 World Cup as he, and his battling team-mates, were swatted aside 43-19 by a truly mighty All Blacks side who later faltered — after allegedly being food-poisoned — in a memorable final to hosts South Africa.
So, no dredging of any memory bank for what was centre Field’s seventh Irish cap and the only time the sides have, so far, met at the World Cup.
“I still see it (the game) pretty much every day when I wake up and that’s because of my busted left rib,” says Field of that May evening at the cavernous Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
“This game was where we helped introduce Jonah Lomu to the world along with (flanker) Josh Kronfeld and (out-half ) Andrew Mehrtens.
“He (Lomu) emptied me,” Field says of what was a truly scything hit by the rugby superstar, who died three years ago on Sunday, which came late in the game when Ireland scored their third and final try.
The Irish had actually taken the lead early in the game thanks to Gary Halpin’s touchdown — which was followed by a rather over-exuberant celebration.
“He annoyed them by making a lovely gesture which really p **** d them off,” is how Field describes it — and after quickfire tries from Lomu and Frank Bunce the team in green still stayed in it with a further try from Field’s Ulster and Malone team-mate Denis McBride which ensured they were just 20-12 down at half-time.
The remainder, though, saw the All Blacks, and Lomu, really turn up the heat.
Lomu scored tries in either half and one devastating second period run set up Kronfeld’s score in a game where the men in black ran in five tries to Ireland’s pretty respectable three.
“It was towards the end of the game when Corkey (Ireland flanker David Corkery) scored,” Field (in action in 1995, right) recalls.
“I got the ball and flicked it to Corkey but Jonah came in on my blindside and hit me so hard that it ruptured one of my ribs on the left hand side.
“I can tell you that was great fun then trying to play against Japan a few days later in Bloemfontein,” he adds with a chuckle.
The Japan game, which Ireland won 50-28, was Field’s only start in the World Cup — he had been a replacement against New Zealand, coming on as a temporary sub for Ulster centre Jonny Bell and a permanent one for full-back Jim Staples — and it proved to be his last involvement thanks to that injury.
Ireland went to narrowly beat Wales in their final pool game before tamely exiting at the quarter-final stage to France, the same point as four years before when a much-altered Irish side had lost an epic clash with Australia at Lansdowne Road.
But back to New Zealand and Lomu. Field still has a picture of the All Black winger surging downfield at Ellis Park with Irish players, including himself, either scattered on the ground in his wake or in fruitless pursuit.
“I’ve a photograph at home where I’m sprawled on the floor. Eric Elwood is about to get sprawled, Paddy Johns is at the side and Denis (McBride) is there too.
“Trying to tackle him was like trying to down an elephant.
“What was he? Something like 18-stone and six foot four?
“But it wasn’t just him, as you’d Frank Bunce and Walter Little in midfield as well so they were a tight enough team we were up against.
“He (Lomu) was a difficult customer to try and get down but we hadn’t seen anything like that in rugby,” adds Field who is now a lecturer in Sports Management at the Ulster University.
“But it’s still a great memory,” he maintains of a game in which he played with fellow Ulstermen McBride, Johns and Bell.
“You were playing in a World Cup and against the All Blacks who were the best team in the world.
“And you were challenging yourself all the time. You wanted to play against the best and they were clearly the best around at the time.”
“The game went professional after this World Cup but the All Blacks had already set the standards in physical fitness and skills.
“They were the benchmark and though South Africa claimed the trophy, the All Blacks were more than good enough to win that World Cup,” says Field, who still occasionally turns out for the Ireland Legends. Incredibly, though, New Zealand, who had won the inaugural competition held in their homeland in 1987, didn’t lift the Webb Ellis trophy again until 2011 when they, once more, hosted it.
As for Ireland, after many close calls over the decades, and quite a few spankings too, they finally got to savour that first ever win over the All Blacks in Chicago two years ago.
Though Field readily admits that his version of Ireland hoped, but never really expected, that they could win that evening in 1995, the mind-set is very different now as the sides, ranked numbers one and two in the world, do battle in Dublin tomorrow before potentially meeting in the knockout stages in next autumn’s World Cup in Japan.
“They’ve done it once, so they can do it again,” says Field of Ireland’s chances of winning tomorrow.
“The thing about the All Blacks is that they’re cynical and clinical and that’s the downfall for most teams facing them.
“Other teams fail to take their opportunities whereas the All Blacks will always take them to make their mark.”
They leave their mark too. And Field will always have his souvenir of the collision with Lomu on a shuddering night of shock and awe in Johannesburg.