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Andy Farrell: 'If I can try and sum it up of where we are at...'
By Liam Heagney at Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Andy Farrell has given his halfway verdict on the efforts of his Ireland team in the 2024 Autumn Nations Series. The Irish have played two of their four November matches, following their opening 13-23 defeat to New Zealand with a 22-19 win over Argentina on Friday night.
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Having surrendered a 13-9, 44th-minute advantage against the All Blacks to lose by 10 points, Farrell’s charges refused to buckle seven days later versus Los Pumas, clinging onto a three-point success despite last scoring in the 33rd-minute of the match.
Both performances left much to be desired. Ireland may have come into the series ranked as World Rugby’s No1 side, but they had not played since last July’s series-ending win away to South Africa in Durban, a lay-off in sharp contrast to the busy New Zealand and Argentina schedules.
“If I can try and sum it up of where we are at, when you are looking at two top sides that we have played in the first two weeks, it looks like we’re still trying to find our feet in the intensity of the full 80 minutes for that top one per cent gains,” explained Farrell, whose team fell to third in the rankings after their opening night loss.
“Obviously, New Zealand and Argentina have been playing those type of games for the last five or six months. It looks like our lads, some of them are a little bit shy of that intensity. Hopefully we are building through this month and we’ll see the best of us in the next two games.
“We looked lethargic. You could say that’s because of penalties given or losing a collision or whatever that maybe but just in general, the quality of opposition has been strong, very strong in these first two games and I think we will get better as we go through.”
Ireland, who next host Fiji on November 23, led Argentina 12-0 after just six minutes, and Crowley’s conversion of Joe McCarthy’s 32nd-minute try made it 22-9 heading towards the interval. However, they failed to score again in a contest where the six-three penalties conceded tally at the break finished a lopsided 13-6 against them. It hurt.
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“It is something that we have been outstanding on over the last 10 years actually but certainly it’s not done out of a player going out there to be indisciplined. It’s coming from the right place.
“That might sound stupid but at the same time what you are trying to do is the right thing by the team and trying to pull a rabbit too much out of the hat at times. You just need to be a little more patient individually and trust the team of what we are about,” he said in wake of a display that included yellow cards for Finlay Bealham and McCarthy.
“It was three or four games in one really, wasn’t it? The over-riding feeling is we are delighted to get the win. There was a few things we needed to learn from last week, some things that we didn’t address on the field but we said last week that we had a chance of winning ugly – we did that this week so that’s a plus.
“But just going through the game, I thought we showed some real good intent, certainly in the first half. We was direct, we was powering into them, it was hard work to handle playing off quick ball etc and then on the back of that if we get the try from Tadhg Beirne, that probably justifies the score a little bit because of the dominance that we had.
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“But we know the type of side that they are, they have improved out of sight, Argentina, and the pressure that they put on us and we put on ourselves in the second half obviously brought them back into the game. But to cut a long story short, we held our nerve towards the end and just about got there.”
