Ireland's failure to capitalise early on cost them against New Zealand

Ireland will be physically and emotionally fatigued after the effort that went into Saturday morning's loss to the All Blacks in Auckland.

Andy Farrell’s team lost the game 42-19 despite dominating territory and possession for large periods of the first half. For 30 minutes the All Blacks were made to look very ordinary, but Ireland failed to capitalise on their dominance, allowing New Zealand to do what they do best to go in 28-5 up at half-time.

Looking at the stats of the first half, New Zealand should have been trailing and Johnny Sexton had exposed some weaknesses in their defence. However, a second quarter of defensive destruction meant that New Zealand led by four tries to one and Ireland were never going to find a way back.

On the day, it felt like Ireland had been shown up. However, on second viewing, Ireland dominated large parts of the game and a few errors cost them dearly.

Sexton’s sublime kick through to Garry Ringrose finished with an intercept by Beauden Barrett when the pass could easily have gone to Jamison Gibson-Park, who ran a textbook up-field support line that you’d expect from all attack-minded scrum-halves. It was moments like this that turned the game and stopped Ireland from pushing on to stretch their lead.

New Zealand had a lot of say in how these chances were missed. For example, Ireland had a scrum on the New Zealand 22m line after 13 minutes of dominance and a 5-0 lead. This was their chance to kick three points or put themselves in a deeper attacking position, allowing them to get two scores away from the All Blacks, a rarity at Eden Park.

Instead, George Bower and his front row were awarded the penalty and New Zealand got out of jail. This could have been a big turning point only New Zealand