Ireland defeats New Zealand in Wellington and achieves the great milestone of its rugby

Garry Ringrose of Ireland, during the match against the All Blacks. Elias Rodriguez (AP)

When someone like Peter O'Mahony sheds tears, something very important is happening.

Seconds later, Joey Carbery kicks to the sideline and the final whistle unleashes the herculean striker.

Ireland has just won a series in New Zealand, a milestone that no one has achieved since 1994. "This is probably the most difficult thing to do in the world of rugby," summed up their coach, the Englishman Andy Farrell, after a victory that raised his Pupils to the first place in the world ranking and submerges the superpower of the oval in a sea of ​​doubts one year before the World Cup.

The calendar brings together the two hemispheres of rugby twice a year.

Between June and July, those from the north play a series, usually of three games, at the home of a southern power.

The host changes every year, so the opportunity to play in New Zealand, the great cathedral, does not come often.

In November, the northern powers visit the north, but face a rival each week.

The series are a romantic legacy of rugby, a sport that has thus built its history, since the World Cup is of recent creation (1987).

The statistic validates Farrell's statement: beating the All Blacks at home is a challenge of another magnitude.

After a good first half, Ireland clearly fell (42-19) in the first game of the series.

The normal.

The last country in the Northern Hemisphere to win a match in New Zealand was France in 2009. Only England, in 2003, and the British & Irish Lions – a combination of Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh – in 2017 have won a match there in so far this century, but none managed to take the series.

The last to do so was France, who won two games in 1994 with the legendary trial of the end of the world.

Ireland, which carries the burden of not having passed the quarterfinals in the World Cups, has signed the most illustrious page of its rugby.

Until 2016, in Chicago, they did not achieve their first victory against New Zealand, which had won thirty matches between the two since 1905. In 2018, they won in Dublin and ousted the All Blacks from the top of the ranking.

Last week, in the greenhouse in Dunedin, they achieved their first victory on New Zealand soil, a milestone that served to tie the series.

The outcome, in Wellington, was also green.

Two wins against the All Blacks in two weeks.

Ireland cemented its victory this Saturday in a prodigious first half (3-22).

It is an event to see New Zealand subjected to such territorial domination without the ability to reply offensively.

Caged felines, the All Blacks turned their haste into inaccuracies and seemed to be outnumbered in any decisive game.

The Club

, with New Zealand players who never entered the plans of the national elite such as Bundee Aki or James Lowe, offered total rugby, giving speed to the game with the electric charges of their attack.

Despite the corrective, New Zealand returned from the locker room like a wounded animal and his stripes allowed him to return to a contest that others would have delivered.

Ardie Savea, the most dynamic striker imaginable, led his pack and a mile-long dash from Will Jordan brought the hosts within three points with 20 minutes to play.

The Irish did not panic, they rehearsed with their

, the platform on which they shine like few others, and endured a lead of ten points when the All Blacks attacked desperately.

In that lofty defense, Tadgh Bernie crushed three local attacks in a row, fishing the oval in the conquest zone, quite a feat.

The victory gives shine to races that are already sold out, such as those of captain Jonny Sexton, who remembered "the four million Irish people who would be having pints for breakfast", or that of O'Mahony himself, a cult of effort: "It's something that I never thought was possible when I was a kid.

But now the young people who have seen it from home know that it can be done.”

It took Ireland 111 years to beat New Zealand, but they have won five of the last eight meetings they have played.

That deserves a few tears.

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