IRELAND HEAD COACH Andy Farrell urged his players not to wallow in the disappointment of missing out on back-to-back Grand Slams after their 23-22 defeat to England in a thrilling Six Nations clash at Twickenham.
While Ireland’s loss means they can’t repeat last year’s Slam, they can still wrap up the Six Nations title against Scotland in Dublin next Saturday.
Farrell said England were the deserved winners after an enthralling contest in London this evening.
“To cut a long story short, I actually thought that England deserved to win,” said Farrell.
“I thought we fought back unbelievably well against the run of play sometimes. Certainly coming in at half-time like that and again in the second half, finding a way to get ourselves in front but again, to cut a long story short, I thought England deserved it with the pressure that they had and created. So congratulations to them.”
Farrell said there would be obvious disappointment in his group at coming up short in their tilt at another Grand Slam, but he asked his players to focus on the chance to seal the Six Nations title next weekend.
“Well, you talk about the Grand Slam stuff, well every game matters,” said Farrell. “We want to win everything and we’ve never shied away from that. Today was obviously one of those games that we wanted to win but that’s life. You dust yourself down.
“We’ve been very good at winning and moving on to the next one. We’ve got to be really good at losing as well, making sure that we congratulate England tonight, have a beer with them.
“I thought they played really well so we’ve got to dust ourselves down tomorrow and make sure that we turn up with a smile on our face because we’ve got a championship to win next weekend.”
Farrell rejected the idea that Ireland might struggle for motivation in the coming days as he underlined what a Six Nations title would mean.
Ireland have only won the championship five times before in the Six Nations era.
“We said from the beginning that we’d like to be in with a chance of winning the competition on the last day and here we are,” said Farrell.
“The lads are realists, they’ll learn the lessons quickly.
“There’s not a problem at all about getting the lads back on track for next week. Six Nations are unbelievably difficult to come by. To win them you tend to have a lot of ups and downs – the results today and what’s happened throughout this competition? That’s why we love it so much.
“For the neutral as well that was a fantastic game to watch. We were on the wrong side of that result but there will be absolutely no problem whatsoever getting back to work next week for what is a super important week for Irish rugby.”
Farrell said England’s belligerent performance hadn’t caught Ireland off guard.
“Not at all,” said Farrell. “Look at the quality of the players that they’ve got. Certainly when you’re coming off the back of a defeat it tends to concentrate the mind a little bit – hopefully it does for us next week.
“We always prepare for every game for everyone to be at their best. I thought they were super tonight, I thought they were physical, they were challenging on the gainline and played a nice brand of rugby as well.”
