Returning to international rugby after 18 months might have been enough to give fans a spring in their step as they left the Aviva Stadium last Saturday.

Add their side's nine-try win over Japan and the cheery air that engulfed that small patch of south Dublin was not hard to explain.

There was also an element of relief. Relief that a repeat of their 2019 meeting with Japan had been avoided.

Relief, too, that the All Blacks were going to arrive in the Irish capital meeting a side carrying some solid momentum.

Japan are far from a stepping stone and few overlooked them. But New Zealand stand alone.

There is no excitement quite like All Blacks week. The promise of a full house with the eyes of the rugby world locked in.

In recent years Ireland and New Zealand have delivered contests etched into the memory of all who watched. In anticipation of another on Saturday we take a look back at the past five meetings between the sides.
Ireland 22-24 New Zealand - 24 November 2013 (Dublin)

Eight years ago New Zealand arrived in Dublin aiming to become the first team in the professional era to win every Test in a calendar year, against a side to whom they had never lost.

It wasn't just history that was against Ireland - the form book didn't look too pretty either, and few arrived to the Aviva with much hope of an upset.

What is it they say about hope?

After 19 minutes, the crowd were on their feet and screaming like never before. The upset was on. Ireland, amazingly, had scored three tries without reply and led 19-0.

Combined with the roar of the crowd it might have been enough to sink every other team in rugby; but not the All Blacks.

Back they came, reducing the arrears to five but Ireland were still in control, and should have been two scores up in the 75th minute only for Johnny Sexton to scuff a straightforward penalty.

In hindsight it is easy to say the outcome was inevitable. With the clock in the red New Zealand took the ball from their own half to the tryline in a peerless display of ball handling and execution to send Ryan Crotty charging over the line.

Aaron Cruden kicked the conversion and New Zealand's unbeaten streak, both in 2013 and against Ireland, stayed alive.
Ireland 40-29 New Zealand - 5 November 2016 (Chicago)

The wounds of 2013 had not healed by the time the sides next met, three years later in Chicago.

But it was not that soul-destroying defeat driving Ireland on. Irish rugby was still coming to terms with the sudden loss of Munster head coach Anthony Foley.

The death of the Ireland and Munster great, aged 42, only three weeks earlier was fresh in the minds of the players when they lined up to face the haka in the shape of a number eight, the position Foley played with distinction for so long.

An emotionally charged Ireland were up against a New Zealand side on an 18-match winning streak, but on this occasion the Irish would not be denied.

Buoyed by another outstanding first half, Ireland this time did not relinquish the lead despite a stirring second-half reply from the All Blacks.

Three of Foley's Munster players - CJ Stander, Conor Murray and Simon Zebo - crossed the whitewash as five-try Ireland beat New Zealand for the first time in 29 attempts and 111 years.
New Zealand 21-9 Ireland - 19 November 2016 (Dublin)

Ireland had poked the bear.

Two weeks after their historic Chicago triumph they met the same opposition on home soil.

New Zealand had been stung by the defeat and had revenge on their mind as they set about a brutally physical contest.

Ireland felt the All Blacks stretched the laws of the game beyond the limit - with Robbie Henshaw forced off early following a high Sam Cane tackle, before Aaron Smith and Malakai Fekitoa were yellow carded for further high tackles.

Fekitoa and Beauden Barrett claimed New Zealand's tries as the All Blacks won the arm wrestle and avenged their first loss to Ireland by claiming a 27th win over them.
Ireland 16-9 New Zealand - 17 November 2018 (Dublin)

Perhaps for the first time, New Zealand came to Dublin in 2018 and the whole of Ireland believed the game was there to be won.

Not that they were convinced of course - it was still New Zealand, still the All Blacks.

But Ireland, fresh from a Grand Slam and a series win in Australia, felt on top of the world. The game was billed as a meeting between the two best teams in rugby, with the right to call themselves number one going to the winner.

Another brutal, no holds barred contest followed and this one, as so often contests do not, delivered on the pre-match hype.

Absorbing and exhilarating, it was a game that looked destined from early on to be decided by a fine margin.

Shortly after half-time Jacob Stockdale attempted a chip and chase only for his kick to be blocked by Kieran Reid. With the tryline at his mercy, the All Blacks skipper knocked on and 51,000 fans inside the Aviva Stadium exhaled.

Just minutes later, Stockdale again tried a chip and chase. This time it worked, and the bounce favoured the Six Nations player of the tournament, who gathered and slid over the line to take the roof off the Aviva Stadium.

With less than a year until the World Cup, Ireland had put themselves forward as the team to beat.
New Zealand 46-14 Ireland - 19 October 2019 (Tokyo)

What a difference a year makes.

When the sides met in the World Cup quarter-finals in Tokyo there were few outside the four walls of the Irish dressing room who gave the men in green anything more than a puncher's chance.

It seems remarkable that the events of 11 months earlier were not fresh in the memory but the Irish side that took the field in Tokyo, despite containing 12 of the same starting XV, felt a million miles away from the one that beat the All Blacks in Dublin.

That match, and that moment, turned out to be the mountain top for Joe Schmidt's Ireland. What followed was a desperately disappointing 2019 that began with a Six Nations humbling at home to England and carried right through to a World Cup group stage defeat by Japan.

They stumbled into the last eight to face New Zealand who had come through their group, containing eventual champions South Africa, undefeated.

The match went with form. From the first whistle to the last, New Zealand's brilliance blew abject Ireland away.

The last four meetings between the sides had been close encounters with little separating the two; the knock-out contest in Japan was anything but.

The seven-try All Blacks swatted Ireland aside, condemning them to a seventh World Cup quarter-final exit.