Joe Schmidt is surely less than a week away from being crowned World Rugby Coach of the Year.

And here’s more evidence — that was mostly missed in the wash up of Ireland’s incredible 16-9 victory over the All Blacks on Sunday (AEDT) — as to why he’s so highly regarded.

As is well documented, the All Blacks have an incredible capacity to put the foot on the gas in the second half and take the game away from the opposition.

Just ask the Wallabies, who were leading by a point at halftime of the first Bledisloe Cup Test this year and trailed by just a converted try in the second and third.

And then, bang, Australia was humbled by 25, 28 and 17 points respectively as the pace went up in the second term.

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Indeed, the All Blacks’ scoring differential between halves in 2018 has been their largest since 2007.

In 13 Tests this season, the All Blacks have scored 202 first half points compared to 281 in the second half.

The 79 point differential is considerably larger than the 58 in 2016 and the 15 point margin last year.

If you were to take away the Test against Japan, where the All Blacks scored 38 first half points — something they’ve only achieved on two other occasions since the 2011 World Cup (USA 2014, Australia 2017) — the differential is even greater, with the margin growing to 86 points.

So how does this relate to their loss against Ireland?

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Well, All Blacks captain Kieran Read touched upon it in his post-match press conference when he was asked to compare the intensity and physicality between the Test and what the All Blacks had faced over the past year against the British and Irish Lions and throughout the Rugby Championship.

“I don’t want to compare really, but, look, it was up there,” Read began.

“I think both teams were very physical.

“You saw by the defence from both sides, getting off the line and putting some shots on, as Steve (Hansen) said, really it came down to only a couple of opportunities — they took their one to score and we didn’t.

“It was a tight game.

“The tough thing is,” Read continued, “sometimes that second half, when you can’t get a flow in the game, there was a lot of stoppages in the game which just effects the flow and it slows the game down.

“It certainly wasn’t as quick, but very physical.”

And these final two sentences from Read bang home the tactical genius from Schmidt.

When the All Blacks wanted to play with speed, they couldn’t.

The end result meant the All Blacks managed just three second half points.

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In his post-match press conference Kieran Read said the All Blacks were frustrated by the continual stoppages in play. Source: Getty Images

A week earlier we had seen that on a wet track in London, England, in part because of their excellent kicking game, were able to slow the match down against the All Blacks and almost come away with victory, falling agonisingly short 16-15.

That wasn’t the case in Dublin, with conditions ideal for running rugby.

And Schmidt, recognising that the All Blacks thrive on pace and have a unique ability to speed the game up given their incredible depth, shrewdly slowed the game down where possible too.

With eight replacements up their sleeves, the trend for most modern Test coaches is to make bulk substitutions.

For instance, Hansen brought on all three front-row replacements in the 46th minute against Ireland.

In contrast, Schmidt tends to drip feed his replacements throughout second halves and he continued that trend against the All Blacks.

Loose-head prop Cian Healy came off in the 51st minute, but the final seven replacements came in the crucial final 22 minutes.

And of those final seven replacements, six of them came when the All Blacks had the set-piece feed from either scrum or lineout.

On all but one occasion, too, Schmidt introduced a single replacement, with only hooker Sean Cronin and tight-head prop Andrew Porter coming on together in the 65th minute.

That meant that whenever the All Blacks tried to up the ante, Ireland slowed the game, gave an extra few seconds to their tiring forwards to recover and brought on fresh men in the crucial last quarter of the match.

Because what the two Tests that the All Blacks have lost in 2018 have shown is that the world champions throw everything at their opposition in the last quarter of a match.

Ireland were forced to make 84 more tackles than New Zealand in the final 20 minutes. Source: Getty Images

Back in September, when the All Blacks lost 36-34 in Wellington, they had 95 per cent possession and forced the Springboks to make 131 tackles to four in the final 20 minutes.

This time, the All Blacks had 78 per cent possession and forced Ireland to make 104 tackles compared to New Zealand’s 20.

They also made 399 run metres compared to 87.

Therefore, Schmidt’s calculated decision to drip feed his replacements and slow down the contest where possible, proved to be a highly effective, yet simple, way of denying what the All Blacks so dearly crave — pace.