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The 'turning point' Andy Farrell rued in Ireland's All Blacks loss

By Liam Heagney at Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell before Friday night's loss to the All Blacks (Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Fair play to Andy Farrell. Offered an invite on Friday night to let off steam over the performance of referee Nic Berry, he ignored the bait and instead fessed up that his Ireland team simply weren’t good enough to bag the win the desired against the All Blacks.

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That was mature and very welcome in this era where the officials are easily sprayed. It didn’t mean that all reference to a major talking point was off the table; it just showed there are different ways in delivering your message.

The statistical reality was that the much fancied Irish had taken a hammering on the penalty count, conceding 13 penalties to just five New Zealand infringements, and it was the difference between winning and losing as Damian McKenzie made hay, landing six of his seven penalty kicks directed at the poles.

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This accuracy left the tourists comfortable victory as Ireland, who led 13-9 three minutes into the second half after a converted Josh van der Flier try, couldn’t kick on from there with their momentum pierced by the flow of penalties and a bench that malfunctioned rather than add some badly needed energy.

“The turning point was the crucial penalty from the scrum and they kicked the goal. It obviously started going in their favour and we compounded that after,” rued Farrell, referencing the 62nd minute set-piece where Ireland got the shove on only be whistled for doing so illegally.

Penalties

13
Penalties Conceded
5
0
Yellow Cards
1
0
Red Cards
0

There will be questions asked; there always is. But the head coach wasn’t playing a blame game with Berry in the crosshairs. “We’ll get a few answers in regards to clarification of a few of them [the penalty decisions].

“But it doesn’t really matter whether it was wrong or right, we still should have supressed ourselves a little bit.

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“It’s not right to try and be desperate, chasing a tail when you have made an error, whether it be a penalty or a dropped ball and compound that error with another error and all of a sudden field position is gone and 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 is concerned, get it back to neutral and get in after the ball that we wanted. We became a little bit too desperate and on the back of that, the energy wasn’t what was needed or the accuracy.”

For sure, they will be looking at themselves in the mirror. “We have to get our own house in order first. There is no excuses for us,” continued Farrell, whose Irish team are next in action on Friday when Argentina, who shared a Rugby Championship series 1-1 with the All Blacks in New Zealand in July, pitch up in Dublin.

“You can talk about all sorts of stuff. Rustiness or game time, there is no excuse. It is what it. Long story short, the opposition deserved to win.”

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“As far as the penalty count, I actually thought the game was stop start, it was a bit scrappy. There was a lot of errors because of the weather a little bit that came down but it was a slow enough game at times. We needed to be in charge of looking after our own end and we didn’t do that well enough.”

That was a fair shout by the fair-minded coach after what was a massively deflating defeat.

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Comments

18 Comments
R
Red and White Dynamight 10 days ago

Farrell could teach the Waterboy a thing or 10 about staying classy and not attacking the match officials. Incl Nic Berry. The ref was sporadically poor to both teams, thats because theyre human and not "cheats".

P
PC 10 days ago

Ireland is a team that pushes the boundaries. From marginal dummy runners to not rolling away to targeting players off the ball. So yeah they lost the penalty count and the game. The end.

S
SadersMan 11 days ago

Farrell playing the ole "turning point" card eh! Blaming the ref without blaming the ref. What a loser!


Berry was adequate, made no obvious result changing clangers that I recall, we adjusted well to his style. The penalty Farrell refers to was an A/R call. Replays show the IRE prop clearly on his way inland.

B
BE 11 days ago

Good on him for not biting on the Nic Berry question.


Berry had a poor game but he was in no way biased against the Irish. The not straight throw against the ABs when Ireland didn’t compete was also strange and Ireland were lucky to not have 5 more penalties atleast for players not rolling away in the first half.


Ireland are a team that have achieved great heights from having high cohesion amongst their team with great coaching. It’ll always be a struggle to play at that level having only been together in camp for such a short period of time. They’ll be back and are favourites of mine to take out the six nations this year

B
BH 11 days ago

Ireland cheated for nearly the whole game and were lucky not to get a yellow card, especially in the first half for repeat ruck penalties in their own half. Very poor discipline from the team in green.

D
Deplorable 11 days ago

Ireland were fortunate that they didn’t pick up a yellow for continued cynical infringements. Berry gave a warning but didn’t have the cojones to follow through.

R
RedWarrior 12 days ago

Like the Irish fans, he is fair and has integrity. We will regroup get it right, progress like we have been for the last 25 years. Let NZ/Ioane etc have their mocking and boasting for now.

m
mc 11 days ago

You're delusional pal, Irish rugby hasn't been good that long and you know it, sit down now sulky cxxt

T
TT 11 days ago

So you lack even the most basic insight to see the contradiction in you self delusion V your actual behaviour/writing,

ie you are blowing your & all Irish fans trumpet (ie apparently self appointed to speak for them all) to everyone about how, quote,' fair ' & full of 'integrity' you are ...


ie 1 full stop before you take your nasty swipe at NZ, all NZ apparently.


There's your, & the Irish fans you actually speak for (?), actual integrity for you, ie unable not to be bitter about a loss after being clearly beaten by a better team on the day after Ireland start winning more.


I know a few Irish fans, & Farrell, have alot more grace & integrity than that.


It been great & appreciated playing against some Irish of greater integrity these past few years. Like Ireland's great & deserved series win in NZ.


Cheers to many more great tests together.

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JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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