Sean Cronin confident of Ireland defeating All Blacks again

Ireland hooker Sean Cronin expressed confidence on his side's ability to beat All Blacks for the second time when they meet each other at Lansdowne Road on Saturday.

Joe Schmidt's men registered their first ever victory over All Blacks in 111 years in Chicago on 5th November and now they will line-up to face the World Champions for the second time in three weeks. Ireland ran a five-try riot while Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray and replacement Joey Carberry kicked 15 points combined to ensure an 11-point win for the team.

The last time New Zealand was beaten twice successively was in 2009 by John Smit led South African team. The Springboks went on to win the Durban encounter by 31-19 following their 29-32 thrilling win in Hamilton.

However, Cronin insisted that Schmidt will have a surprise strategy ready for the All Blacks for the Saturday's encounter.

"There's no better man than Joe to put together a game plan to go and attack them this week," said Cronin, with Ireland desperate to back up the 40-29 victory at Soldier Field.

"And I'm sure Joe has been in the think-tank with the rest of the coaches devising something special for us."

New Zealand have strengthened their team with lock Brodie Retallick set to start while second row Sam Whitelock is also in contention to make it to the game.

Following their victory over All Blacks, Ireland went on to defeat Canada by 52-21 at Lansdowne Road last weekend but Cronin highlighted the areas of improvement that Ireland will need to address before facing Steve Hansen's men again.

"We always have confidence that we can go out and match any team on the day, as long as we put in the performance and really hone in on the different aspects of the specific game that's required," said Cronin.

"There's a few areas we can take out of the Canada game and in Chicago where we can look to improve on.

"We weren't happy with our maul defence against Canada, our attack structure, there's areas there and there's parts of our defence in Chicago too.

"They're going to have a lot of changes, they've got world-class players in Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock to come back into the row, possibly moving Jerome Kaino back to the back row where he's been fantastic for years.

"It's a different team coming to the Aviva, so that's an area the coaches will have to look at for the selection they make too.

"It's got to be a different mentality, depending on their selection.

"As long as we get the attitude right, the physicality and the mentality, we know we can match anyone."