TOKYO: New Zealand coach Steve Hansen hailed his team’s stunning 46-14 World Cup quarter-final demolition of Ireland on Saturday as a victory for a winning mentality and a disciplined pack of forwards.
The All Blacks, at their off-loading best, raced out to a 22-0 half-time lead and turned the screw in the second period, as Ireland scored two late consolation tries to avoid a whitewash.
“Our attack game has gone to a new level,” said Hansen, with Beauden Barrett again majestic from fullback and wingers George Bridge and Sevu Reece involved in everything.
But the Kiwi coach said credit was due to the graft offered by a front five who outmuscled a touted Irish pack and employed a ferocious defence that stymied the men in green.
“Numbers one to five laid the platform,” he said, adding that the back row get the immediate benefits, while the half-backs and Barrett “get to drive the game”.
“It’s a real simple formula: if you don’t go forward you don’t have opportunities to control it. That starts with the big men doing their job well.”
Hansen added: “Defence is 50 percent of the game and probably 90 percent when you take in the psychological value of it.
“We kept our discipline. When they carried we got up and made our tackles and they were punishing tackles and forced some errors. When you’re doing that teams start to second-guess a little bit and psychologically, you get an edge.”
That edge also nullified a raucous Tokyo Stadium seemingly half-full of Ireland fans.
“The Irish are some of the best travellers in the world, they go anywhere for a party and they enjoy it, they’ve got their songs and their
way of doing things. It was sort of like a home match feeling,” Hansen said.
Hansen also questioned the merit of experience, saying it was a “funny thing”, with Ireland having never advanced beyond the quarter-finals of a World Cup despite boasting players with huge numbers of caps. – AFP
