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Why Leicester Fainga'anuku should take centre stage for the All Blacks

Chicago is not known as the Windy City for nothing. The violently unpredictable gusts which roll around Soldier Field like thunder once caused New York Giants punter Sean Landeta to swing and miss at a ball completely as it dropped the very short distance from hand to foot. “The wind took the drop away from me… I really didn’t miss it, I grazed it with my foot,” the All-Star kicker commented ruefully afterwards.

If events in Chicago at the weekend could be summarised in a single word, that word would be would be ‘fickle’. Decision-making by the officiating crew was up in the air, and both of the teams who contested the Gallagher Cup on the western shore of Lake Michigan are still vulnerable to shifts in the rugby weather.

The Irish are in a big phase of transition because of their age profile, with several players in their ‘golden generation’ approaching the end of the line at the same time. ‘Razor’ Robertson’s All Blacks meanwhile, are still wondering how they should go about the business of winning Test matches. The winds of change are in the air, and they are as changeable as those which swirl and eddy around Soldier Field itself.

New Zealand outmuscled Ireland in Saturday’s disjointed Chicago Test match (Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

The second-minute red card issued to Ireland’s man of the series on the Lions tour, Tadhg Beirne, set the tone for a scrappy affair. As ex-All Blacks legend Murray Mexted observed on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin: “It was a very difficult game to rate any team fairly because there was a lot of interference. You would have to look at the adjudication more than anything else. It was stop-start throughout the whole thing, which was a shame really, because it’s a promo for the game in Chicago.”

There is little doubt the 26-13 loss will leave Ireland head coach Andy Farrell scratching his head, groping for new solutions. He may even be suffering a milder version of the Lions migraine Sir Graham Henry experienced back in 2001. Players Henry had built up as the best with the national team were not first choice for the Lions and they wanted to know why on their return home. Trust fell apart and things were never quite the same.

Although Farrell won a very tight series in Aussie 24 years after Ted lost one back in 2001, there may still be ground to make up, and some explaining to do to the likes of Bundee Aki, who was second choice behind Sione Tuipulotu for the first Test, and James Lowe, who was dropped for the decisive third game. Others such as Josh van der Flier did not get a look-in at all. The Lions experience does not always reinforce national cohesion, it can fragment it.

Former All Black Justin Marshall reinforced this view on the GBRANZ podcast.

“Let’s just throw one name out there into the stratosphere: Bundee Aki. Didn’t start him, started him, brought him on but wasn’t quite so sure. It was quite unusual.

“James Lowe was another one. I don’t know whether that was external pressure, because they weren’t losing after all – so does that make them settled or unsettled?”

Other big-name players in Mack Hansen and Joe McCarthy are out with long-term injuries and Caelan Doris only returned to active duty on Saturday; add those to a growing list of thirty-somethings in the twilight of their professional careers, and ‘unsettled’ is the mot juste for Farrell’s Ireland.

For New Zealand it was likewise, a mixed bag. I had concluded my preview of the All Blacks’ end-of-year tour with a table and a question.

“It is hard to identify one particular area where New Zealand is improving, especially on the attacking side of the ball – the zone of expertise previously involving Leon MacDonald and Jason Holland, and now populated by Scott Hansen alone.”

The raw stats say New Zealand did improve in at least a couple of those aspects in Chicago. They may not have scored any tries from turnover ball, but they did split the difference between TRC 2024 and 2025 by making six clean breaks. They eventually won the try count by four to one and most important of all, they blitzed the men in green in the final quarter, 19-0.

Ex-Bay of Plenty tighthead Ben Castle explained ‘the curate’s egg’ effect away as follows on Sky Sport’s The Breakdown:

“Scott Robertson and his coaching team will like what they’ve seen in parts, but they won’t like how teams have found out a way to slow them down.

“Kick the ball out, slow down that lineout, get it into the crowd so they can’t go quickly. Slow down the defensive play. Slow down the ruck, get the ball away, make them chase back.

“We’d love to attack and love to counter-attack but it’s often taken away [by the opponent]. There’s still stuff to work on, but how good it was in that second half, how they controlled possession, and that got the width and tempo into the game.”

The business of creating tempo is not as far beyond Kiwi control as Castle implies – far from it. The raw stats show Robertson’s charges have struggled to accelerate their attack from changes of possession and impart width to it consistently. The All Blacks have the power to change that.

Arguably the most important change in the game occurred not with Beirne’s departure, but when New Zealand 12 Jordie Barrett was forced to leave the field with a knee/ankle sprain in the 15th minute. One man’s misfortune was another’s opportunity, as Quinn Tupaea and Leicester Fainga’anuku were united in the All Blacks midfield for the remainder of the game.

Their attacking stats overshadowed those of their more experienced opposites Stuart McCloskey and Garry Ringrose.

The two starting wings outside Fainga’anuku added another 221m and eight more busts, so they certainly profited from the two new men inside them. Tupaea even chipped in with a game-leading two extra pilfers at the defensive breakdown.

But at the beginning of the match, nothing looked less likely than the All Blacks achieving ‘profitable width’ to their attacking game.

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