A frustrated Dan Sheehan makes telling admission about Ireland's season

Leinster hooker Dan Sheehan admits that there is frustration in the Ireland camp after they ended their first half of the Nations Championship with a 40-21 defeat to the All Blacks at Eden Park.

The All Blacks extended their unbeaten run at their Auckland fortress to 53 games to send Ireland spinning to a first defeat in the tournament after wins over Australia and Japan.

Sheehan was left to bemoan his side trying too hard, which caused them to make too many mistakes and says that it is something that Ireland will need to take on board in future.

“It was frustrating because I thought when we were getting our stuff right, we were able to be quite productive and get up the pitch, and we scored some good tries. Set piece was good, and it was just, like Faz (Andy Farrell) said there, some things that we didn’t really see coming.

“Uncharacteristic mistakes, discipline errors, which comes off the back of probably being a bit too desperate and trying to make things happen too much. You just get a bit edgy and over the line, and that’s just lessons we need to take in.

“So, yeah, it’s an overriding feeling — a bit frustrated — because we were really pumped up coming into this game. The opportunity to play in Eden Park was one that I don’t know if we’ll ever get back.

“It’s frustrating that we didn’t really get it all to come together there. But I’m proud of the lads. I thought they stuck together really well over the last few weeks,” he said.

Sheehan acknowledged it’s probably not the season Ireland would have wanted, despite eight wins and four defeats, and that they will be working hard to raise their standards.

“Probably not the season that we really wanted. We saw improvements at times, but if we want to be serious about going on and really pushing World Rugby standards, we need to be better.

“So going into the summer break now for us, obviously rest up, but we need to make sure that we’re reflecting properly and get ourselves in the right mindset to attack the next season. We’ve a bit of improving to do to get there.”

“The calibre of player we have here is unbelievable, the amount of experience we have. We just need to get it out of each other, and it’s not an easy process. We need to actually dig deep, and people need to dig deep within themselves, and we need to dig deep as a group.

“We’ve just got to look forward to the challenge ahead. Like I said, massive year coming up, exciting times, so we really just need to dig in,” he added.