Johnny Sexton says Ireland won't get sweet-talked into playing freestyle rugby against New Zealand on the back of a much vaunted display against Japan.
Andy Farrell’s side made it six wins from six with a 60-5 demolition job against the Brave Blossoms on Saturday.
The manner of the victory, which saw Ireland playing a more expansive style and running in nine tries while offloading 18 times, earned many plaudits but a different test awaits against the All Blacks and the captain insists it would be naïve not to be prepared to adapt to what the three-time world champions can bring.
"That's just the way the game unfolded on Saturday," said the 36-year-old ahead of Saturday's clash at the Aviva Stadium (3.15pm, live on RTÉ)
"We've always had the license to do that but if teams show a different picture, you can't do that all the time.
"We'd love to do it all the time. We just got presented with the pictures and we read them quite well and executed off the back of it.
"But if a team comes and puts 14 guys in the frontline, you can't run and you've got to kick more. You've got to target different space.
How do Ireland beat the All Blacks? Stop them from scoring more than 20 and you'll give yourself a shot, says @TheRealEddieOS #AgainstTheHead #RTErugby pic.twitter.com/DWBFFvItcj
— RTÉ Rugby (@RTErugby) November 8, 2021
"In an ideal world, yes, but if it's raining or conditions are really bad and they play a different type of defence to what Japan showed us, well then we will play the right options that we see fit.
"The most important thing is that we win and that's what we're judged on.
"It's great getting some plaudits for the way we played on Saturday. We showed bits of that during the Six Nations, but the pleasing part about it was that it was more consistent this week.
"But again, I think Japan even said themselves that they weren't too happy with what they put up on the day, so we're playing against much better opposition this week I think.
"It was important for us to start on a good note. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves last week to not be sitting here today and saying, 'we only had a few training sessions to prepare.' We made sure we prepared properly in the limited time that we had.
"Now that the coaches have been in place for a couple of years or 18 months, whatever it is, we're starting to get used to the systems and we were able to hit the ground running.
"At the same time, we saw a few things in the game that the All Blacks might have seen and we need to brush up on a couple of things to make sure that we're ready to go against the best team in the world on Saturday."
Here is that stunning Andrew Conway try that put Ireland into a wonderful position early on.
— RTÉ Rugby (@RTErugby) November 6, 2021
📺 - https://t.co/CStwnXf2cB
📱 - https://t.co/geqhxWnp9p pic.twitter.com/g0X86W5gAF
Full-back Hugo Keenan, meanwhile, reckons winning the collisions is central to continuing on where they left off.
"It's always important to push that aspect," he said.
"Sometimes you get that opportunity when you win that contact, keep the ball alive and look for those offloads. I think that’s the reason why we got a few offloads, because our physical dominance around the contact area was quite good.
"It’s something we are working on in training, hopefully we’ll bring it again this week. The skillset in the group is massive, across the board, in the pack, there’s definitely the ability for those offloads.
'The most important thing is that we win and that's what we're judged on' - @irishrugby captain Johnny Sexton looks ahead to @allblacks challenge #RTERugby #RTESport #IREvNZ pic.twitter.com/n5avyvNvk7
— RTÉ Rugby (@RTErugby) November 9, 2021
"It’s just due to the rare times they do it and executing it when you do it...but you don’t want to be forcing it.
"I don’t think anything has really changed in the way we play, it’s just a few of them came off at the weekend.
"Because we were waiting for that physical contact we got the right to offload."
Ireland have beaten New Zealand in two of their last four meetings, having first shed the hoodoo in Chicago in 2016.
That was followed up two years later by a famous 16-9 win at the Aviva Stadium and Sexton was asked if he feels there is more respect for Ireland among the Kiwis since that victory.
"I'm not sure, you'd have to ask them," said the Leinster out-half, who won his 100th Irish cap last week.
"Look, when you go back to that 2019 [World Cup 46-14 defeat], it was the biggest one of the lot of them and we didn't play as well as we could have. We made mistakes which they capitalised on, we didn't take the chances we had and that's the game.
"If they go a couple of scores up they are very hard to chase down. We’ve got to concentrate on ourselves and make sure we can get the very best performance we can out on the pitch and see where that leaves us.
"That’s where all our focus is on at the moment.
"I think it's the intensity that they bring to the game [that makes them so difficult to beat], the physicality. By intensity, I mean the speed they play at and at the same time being physical.
O'Gara enjoying Ireland's new attack
"We know what's coming because we've played against them so many times but there's a few lads who haven't played against them. We have to let them know what it's like out there against them.
"Look, all the focus is on making sure we can get our best performance out there at the weekend. We know what quality they possess; we know their coaches quite well having been coached by [former Ireland coaches] Greg Feek and John Plumtree before.
"We know the strengths that they bring so we've got to make sure we're in the best place possible come Saturday."
Follow Ireland v New Zealand via our liveblog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app, watch live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player or listen to national radio commentary on RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport.
