Ireland will try and put in some crunching one-on-one tackles in a bid to halt the All Blacks in the Second Test tomorrow.
New Zealand took Ireland apart to win 42‑10 at Eden Park last week, controlling the breakdown to set up line breaks around the ruck and create mismatches in the backline.
Gordon D’Arcy returns to Ireland’s team at inside centre in Christchurch in place of the injured Keith Earls and faces the daunting task of dealing with the threat posed by his opposite number, Sonny Bill Williams.
“The breakdown is what rugby is about,” said D’Arcy (above). “There aren’t too many tries from set phase any more. It’s not about the first phase it’s that fifth, sixth seventh phase, that missed tackle, one-on-one and when they get in behind with three guys flooding through against the full-back.
“What we learned was that you can’t put three guys into the tackle and breakdown, especially when you have guys like Sonny Bill who can make offloads when he’s got two players on him. We just have to have that ruthlessness in one-on-one tackles to turn the tables a little bit.”
D’Arcy said the team had worked hard on their approach to the breakdown and added: “We know how to do it but we just didn’t do ourselves justice last week.”
