It's the kind of attitude they carry into their dealings with the media. There is some kind of All Black media event scheduled for every day of the week during the test season and they do this amount of media for two reasons. Firstly, they're the All Blacks and they know that, as such, they are owned by the New Zealand public. The media, in the truest sense of the word, are a medium between the players and the public and thus the New Zealand media are granted as much access as is physically possible to bridge the gap. It makes sense.

The second reason is because in this day and age, the All Blacks are something akin to a multinational corporation. They're a moneymaking operation as much as a rugby-playing one and as any corporation knows, you need to have your media policy bang on, just as you need to have your tactics, fitness and medical policies working. It's all part of the one machine and the All Blacks are fully aware of their responsibilities in this area. It's not an addition to their role as All Blacks. It's something that's as much part of their job as passing and tackling.

Which brings us to Ireland. They lost to the All Blacks last weekend. The home side fully deserved their victory over the course of the 80 minutes, but Ireland were bright, ambitious and could have won the game had a few things worked out differently. At the end of the game, and in the days afterwards, you were left concluding that this Ireland team needed to up things by a couple of extra per cent in a few key areas to be somewhere close to being on a par with their opponents. Nothing revolutionary, just a few tweaks here and there to sort a few issues out.

You may have heard that there was a dispute between the Irish players and the media during the week. The players weren't happy with something written by one journalist and decided they wouldn't be talking to him. Of course they're fully entitled to ignore whoever they want, when they want, but the way in which the whole thing was handled beggared belief. For something he had written in Monday's Irish Independent, Dave Kelly was told one minute before the players were coming into the room on Tuesday that nobody would be talking to him. There wasn't even time to argue his case. There was no option but for the rest of the media to leave the room.

It could have been any one of us, and might be next week.

The main thing you were left to deduce from the whole incident was this Ireland team, and by extension the IRFU, have no coherent media policy whatsoever, no strategic goals in this area. It appears to be made up on a day-to-day basis depending on what crops up. Their amateurism in this area defies belief, especially when they've managed to get so many other things right over the past 10 years.

Take the team, for example. They have an excellent fitness regime marshalled by Mike McGurn, a superb medical staff which includes Dr Gary O'Driscoll, and on the coaching front the likes of Niall O'Donovan, Eddie O'Sullivan (left) and Graham Steadman work to the utmost of their abilities to produce a game strategy. The problem is, media-wise the players feel they can do it themselves, despite the presence of their media and communications officer, Karl Richardson. Now we have the utmost respect for Eddie O'Sullivan's ability to organise, for instance, and Brian O'Driscoll's unrivalled running skills, but we're mystified as to why they believe they're clued in enough to make radical media policy decisions.

The fact of the matter is that they're no more qualified to make judgements on how to deal with the fourth estate, than for example, John Hayes is qualified to advise Ronan O'Gara on how to kick. Does Philip Browne at the IRFU allow his accountants to draw up marketing policy? Or his marketing people to do the accounts? We spoke earlier about the extra few percent Ireland need to catch up with the All Blacks and while there are undoubtedly more important areas for Eddie O'Sullivan to worry about, the media thing is something that can be transformed pretty easily. The All Blacks are utterly relaxed in their media selves and they don't allow it to distract. It shouldn't distract the Irish players either but this week has proved that deciding upon media policy and executing it is too much for them. They need to take direction from others and then do the talking.

It'll take them one step closer to the All Blacks.