'We've been very good at winning... we've got to be good at losing'

Ireland head coach Andy Farrell has no doubts his side will bounce back from their Guinness Six Nations loss to England at Twickenham, saying “we’ve got a Championship to win” against Scotland next weekend at the Aviva Stadium.

England ended Ireland’s pursuit of back-to-back Grand Slams with an inspired performance in London, beating the Championship leaders 23-22 courtesy of a last-play drop goal from Marcus Smith.

Farrell was full of praise for Steve Borthwick’s side after the match, and was quick to emphasise that the hosts deserved their victory.

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“To cut a long story short,” he said. “I thought England deserved it with the pressure they had and created, so congratulations to them.

“I thought they were super tonight. They were physical, they were challenging on the gain line and played a nice brand of rugby as well.”

Despite the defeat, Ireland remain firm favourites to win the Championship as they enter the final weekend with a four point lead at the top of the table.

Farrell commended the way England bounced back from their Calcutta Cup loss to Scotland in round three, and explained how he hoped the defeat at Twickenham will “concentrate the mind” of his squad as they chase the title next week.

He said: “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 mind and hopefully it does for us next week.

“We’ve got to dust ourselves down tomorrow, I’ll make sure we turn up with a smile on our face because we’ve got a Championship to win next weekend.

“We said from the beginning that we’d like to be in with a chance to win the competition on the last day and here we are.

“The lads are realists, we’ll learn our lessons quickly and it’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 and you look at the results today and what’s happened throughout this competition, that’s why we love it so much. I suppose for the neutral, that was a fantastic game to watch, we were on the wrong side of it but there will be absolutely no problem whatsoever getting back to work next week for what is a super important week for Irish rugby.

“We want to win everything, we’ve never shied away from that. Today was one of those games that we wanted to win, but that’s life. You dust yourselves down, we’ve been very good at winning and moving onto the next one, we’ve got to be very good at losing as well- making sure that we congratulate England tonight.

“We said from the beginning that we’d like to be in with a chance to win the competition on the last day and here we are.

Ireland’s captain Peter O’Mahony joined Farrell in praising a “clinical” England side, while ruing his side’s discipline at the same time.

“Our discipline was a big in for them,” the flanker said. “I thought they were clinical around messing up our breakdown. We fought hard to get consistency in our phase play.

“I thought we striked well off set pieces but we didn’t get into a lot of our phase play.

“It was a pressure match, a pressure environment and they’re a quality side and they showed that in spades tonight in the way they defended and were clinical in attack.