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'No, it’s not, that’s the truth' - Andy Farrell rubbishes Ireland subplot

By PA
Head coach Andy Farrell during an Ireland Rugby media conference at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. (Photo By Seb Daly/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Head coach Andy Farrell hopes a raucous Dublin crowd can help Ireland topple the All Blacks.

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A sold-out Aviva Stadium awaits New Zealand on Friday evening as the hosts attempt to right the wrongs of last year’s World Cup quarter-final exit in Paris.

Farrell, who dismissed the notion of revenge being a motivating factor, anticipates an electric atmosphere, with a planned pre-match light show set to fire up supporters.

“That’s what everyone wants – I’m sure that they (New Zealand) want it as well,” he said.

“That’s what normally happens when the All Blacks come to town anyway. I haven’t seen it any different to that, so I think Irish rugby’s in a good place.

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“I think everyone knows New Zealand are always the team to beat so I expect it (the atmosphere) to be as good as ever, if not better.”

Ireland suffered a dramatic 28-24 loss to the All Blacks at Stade de France just over 12 months ago.

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Farrell insists avenging that heartbreaking result is not part of his thinking.

“No, it’s not, that’s the truth,” he said.

“Do you need that when you’re playing against one of the best teams in the world?

“Playing against the All Blacks has always brought that edge to any type of game. This is a top-level Test match that everybody wants to be involved in.

“Don’t get me wrong, we were gutted to lose that game, but that’s so much in the distant past for us now.”

Ireland went 111 years without beating New Zealand – losing 27 and drawing once in 28 meetings – before a 40-29 success in Chicago in 2016.

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Including that landmark victory at Soldier Field, the reigning Six Nations champions have won five of the last nine matches against the All Blacks.

“I suppose New Zealand over the years have had it in a sense where they’ve probably thought they should win against Ireland,” said Farrell.

“But hopefully the way that we’ve performed or improved since Soldier Field, the respect is a little bit higher from their side for us now.”

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2 Comments
B
Bull Shark 2 hours ago

with a planned pre-match light show set to fire up supporters

But will an Airbus fly over?


I stand to be corrected but the ABs have never won a game in which a jet plane was flown overhead the stadium before kickoff.

N
Ninjin 1 hr ago

Ja neh bring on the airbus!

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Tom 1 hour ago
Borthwick, it's time to own up – Andy Goode

The problem for me isn't the pragmatic playstyle, it's that there is no attacking gameplan whatsoever.


I've got no issue with a methodical, kick heavy, defense centric gameplan. That playstyle won England our only world cup and it's won SA 4 of them. However! You can play in a pragmatic manner but you have to still play heads-up rugby and have the ability to turn it on when you manufacture prime attacking situations. England work very hard to get in the right areas of the pitch and have no idea how to convert when they get there, hence we tried and missed 3 drop goals as we were completely impotent in the 22. I've not seen any improvement in our attack in the last 4-5 years. The only time we got close to the tryline was from an interception, it's embarrassing. I don't know what Richard Wigglesworth is getting paid for.


I agree that England should have found a way to close out that game. Being able to grind out tough games is critical but I'd argue that being unable to string more than a couple of passes together without dropping it and finding a way to get over the gainline is even more important... But frustratingly, they don't seem interested. All you hear is about how close we are to bring a great team, we just need to execute a bit better. I don't see it. I see a team who are very physical, very pragmatic who do some stuff really well and are useless with the ball in hand which adds up to a very average side. They need to stop focusing on getting 5% better at the stuff we're already at an 8/10 level and focus on getting a lot better at the stuff we're doing at a 2/10 level. We have the worst attack of pretty much any side in the world... Argentina, Scotland, Fiji are way more threatening.

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