Sombre.

The All Blacks don’t like losing. It’s not often it happens, but when it does – they clearly take it very personally. And they should. They’re world champions, and they want still be at the top come the end of 2019.

Saturday’s defeat was no doubt a tough pill to swallow. Ireland are without doubt their closest challengers to the World Cup crown in Japan. And they defeated New Zealand in style, just months out from rugby’s showpiece event.

A look inside the dressing room after the game show just how hard the All Blacks took the defeat.

“You can see the changing room, it’s pretty sombre. The boys don’t enjoy losing,” captain Kieran Read said.

“It was just one of those scrappy games where we couldn’t really get in there. We gave ourselves a chance in the last 20 minutes but we didn’t take those opportunities and that’s what it comes down to and in big occasions, it’s pretty small margins.

“A lot of credit has to go to the Irish, they defended really well and they shut us down. It’s something to really bank, a big game against a really good side in front of thousands of people screaming for the opposition.”