THE COACH CAM made it clear how Andy Farrell was feeling as he watched Ireland slide to their first November Test defeat in Dublin since the All Blacks won in 2016.
The frustration was vivid as Ireland’s error count mounted in a 23-13 loss.
New Zealand were deserved winners but Farrell has plenty of cause to be deeply disappointed tonight.
His team defended well but had to do too much of it because their attack was poor, their discipline was damaging, and they failed to get control of a stop-start game in the rain.
“I think it’s easily summed up with the mood of the dressing room really,” said Farrell afterwards, “pretty sombre as expected.
“The lads are gutted. We’re all gutted together. I thought we’d prepped well, trained well, I thought we was excited about the game and we was.
“We didn’t manage to put our game out on the field. Obviously, the opposition have a big say in that. But I thought we compounded too many errors and almost suppressed ourselves a little bit at times.
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“The energy and the accuracy wasn’t what was needed to win a big Test match like that.”
Giving up 13 penalties was unhelpful, with Damian McKenzie kicking six of them as the Kiwis kept the scoreboard moving, but that lack of discipline was just one indicator of how Ireland made error upon error tonight.
Farrell’s Ireland team have prided themselves on their ability to bounce back strongly from mistakes but that didn’t happen often enough against New Zealand.
“It’s not right to try and be desperate, chasing your tail, when you’ve made an error, whether it be a penalty or a dropped ball, and compound that error with another error and all of a sudden field position is gone and points come off the back of that.
Ireland boss Andy Farrell. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
“And we did that a number of times.
“So, we need to fix up our mentality as far as that’s concerned, getting back to neutral and getting the ball back in the way that we want it. We became a little bit too desperate and on the back of that, the energy wasn’t what was needed, or the accuracy.”
Farrell was asked if referee Nic Berry’s performance was frustrating but he wasn’t going there.
“Well, we get our own house in order first and there’s no excuses for us,” said Farrell.
“You can talk about all sorts of stuff, rustiness or game time, but there’s no excuse. It is what it is. The opposition, long story short, deserved to win. As far as the penalty count, I actually thought the game was stop-start and scrappy, there was a lot of errors because of the weather a little bit that came down but it was a slow enough game at times.
“We needed to be in charge of looking after our own energy and we didn’t do that well enough.”
Ireland will come back into camp on Sunday to begin preparing for their second November Test against Argentina.
Farrell is confident his players will find a big response to their disappointment.
“It’s a funny old feeling because we don’t tend to have it too much in that dressing room, but it is what it is,” said Farrell. “That’s life.
“Congratulations to New Zealand and we move on. We have to. We have to find the solutions as soon as we possibly can because we’ve got a hungry side in Argentina who are playing some really good rugby at this moment in time.
“So we need to get back on the horse and start it all over again.”
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'There's no excuse' - Farrell gutted by Ireland's lack of energy and accuracy
THE COACH CAM made it clear how Andy Farrell was feeling as he watched Ireland slide to their first November Test defeat in Dublin since the All Blacks won in 2016.
The frustration was vivid as Ireland’s error count mounted in a 23-13 loss.
New Zealand were deserved winners but Farrell has plenty of cause to be deeply disappointed tonight.
His team defended well but had to do too much of it because their attack was poor, their discipline was damaging, and they failed to get control of a stop-start game in the rain.
“I think it’s easily summed up with the mood of the dressing room really,” said Farrell afterwards, “pretty sombre as expected.
“The lads are gutted. We’re all gutted together. I thought we’d prepped well, trained well, I thought we was excited about the game and we was.
“We didn’t manage to put our game out on the field. Obviously, the opposition have a big say in that. But I thought we compounded too many errors and almost suppressed ourselves a little bit at times.
“The energy and the accuracy wasn’t what was needed to win a big Test match like that.”
Giving up 13 penalties was unhelpful, with Damian McKenzie kicking six of them as the Kiwis kept the scoreboard moving, but that lack of discipline was just one indicator of how Ireland made error upon error tonight.
Farrell’s Ireland team have prided themselves on their ability to bounce back strongly from mistakes but that didn’t happen often enough against New Zealand.
“It’s not right to try and be desperate, chasing your tail, when you’ve made an error, whether it be a penalty or a dropped ball, and compound that error with another error and all of a sudden field position is gone and points come off the back of that.
“And we did that a number of times.
“So, we need to fix up our mentality as far as that’s concerned, getting back to neutral and getting the ball back in the way that we want it. We became a little bit too desperate and on the back of that, the energy wasn’t what was needed, or the accuracy.”
Farrell was asked if referee Nic Berry’s performance was frustrating but he wasn’t going there.
“Well, we get our own house in order first and there’s no excuses for us,” said Farrell.
“You can talk about all sorts of stuff, rustiness or game time, but there’s no excuse. It is what it is. The opposition, long story short, deserved to win. As far as the penalty count, I actually thought the game was stop-start and scrappy, there was a lot of errors because of the weather a little bit that came down but it was a slow enough game at times.
“We needed to be in charge of looking after our own energy and we didn’t do that well enough.”
Ireland will come back into camp on Sunday to begin preparing for their second November Test against Argentina.
Farrell is confident his players will find a big response to their disappointment.
“It’s a funny old feeling because we don’t tend to have it too much in that dressing room, but it is what it is,” said Farrell. “That’s life.
“Congratulations to New Zealand and we move on. We have to. We have to find the solutions as soon as we possibly can because we’ve got a hungry side in Argentina who are playing some really good rugby at this moment in time.
“So we need to get back on the horse and start it all over again.”
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All Blacks andy farrell downbeat Gutted Ireland