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Andy Farrell: We became a little bit too desperate

Andy Farrell felt Ireland “suppressed” themselves during a 23-13 loss to New Zealand, which ended a 19-game home winning run.

Ireland led twice during the game but couldn’t build any momentum, paying for numerous handling errors and the concession of 13 penalties to five from the All Blacks.

Off the tee, man of the match Damian McKenzie was superb and the out-half kicked six penalties and Will Jordan scored his usual try.

“I’m disappointed. It’s easily summed up with the mood of the dressing room, really, it’s pretty sombre,” head coach Farrell told reporters after the game.

“The lads are gutted, we’re all gutted together. I thought we prepped well, trained well, I thought we were excited about the game and we were. 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 accuracy wasn’t what was needed to win a big Test match like that.

“It’s a funny old feeling because we don’t tend to have it too much in that dressing room. That’s life, congratulations to New Zealand.”

On the high penalty count, Farrell suggested his wasn’t in full agreement with referee Nic Berry but admitted his own side were too ill-disciplined.

“We’ll get a few answers in regards to clarification of a few of them,” he said.

“But it doesn’t matter whether it was wrong or right. We still shouldn’t have suppressed ourselves.

“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 drop ball, and then compound that error with another error and all of a sudden field position has completely gone.

“Points come on the back of that and we did that a number of times.

“We need to fix up our mentality as far as that’s concerned, getting back to neutral and getting the ball back the way we want it.

“We became a little bit too desperate and on the back of that the energy or the accuracy wasn’t what was needed.

“There’s no excuses for us. You can talk about all sorts of stuff: rustiness or game time. There’s no excuse.

“The opposition, long story short, deserved to win. I actually thought the game was stop-start, it was a bit scrappy.

“There were a lot of errors, because of the weather a little bit. It was a slow enough game at times and we needed to be in charge of looking after our energy and we didn’t do that well enough.”

Ireland next face Felipe Contepomi’s Argentina in the second game of the Autumn Nations Series.

The hosts have won their last three meetings against the Pumas, who recorded victories over South Africa, New Zealand and Australia in the Rugby Championship.

“We move on, we have to,” added Farrell.

“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.

“We need to get back on the horse and start it all over again.”

Ireland trailed 9-6 at the break but took the lead through Josh van der Flier’s converted try in the 43rd minute.

They threatened immediately after that score but conceded a penalty inside the New Zealand 22.

“I was happy with the start of the second-half,” said captain Caelan Doris (above).

“That was the message at half-time, that we felt we hadn’t really fired a shot and we got momentum back early on in the second-half, and the message was very much stay on that, stay with it.

“But they’re a quality side, obviously. And they came back. Our discipline gave them entry and territory and possession and they came back into it in the second half.”

New Zealand boss Scott Robertson (above) was pleased as his side responded to Ireland’s surge at the start of the second half.

“Test footy. A lot of pressure,” he said after they claimed their third win of their tour, adding to victories over Japan and England.

“[There was] the yellow card [against Scott Barrett in the 40th minute] and then they scored after half-time. We probably didn’t adapt as well as we have previously.

“But clear solutions, great actions. Put pressure back on them and won the test.

“I want them to be courageous and we were.

“There was a lot of care in defence physically but also got the ball into our hands on a slippery old night.

“I thought the s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁set we showed was pretty impressive and picked up some great shoulders.”

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