Suddenly the autumnal narrative has changed dramatically. Not only has another November clean sweep been shredded, but Ireland’s ensuing three opponents in their Autumn Nations Series all laid down markers in a tumultuous weekend.
Next Friday night at the Aviva Stadium, Ireland face an ever-improving Argentina side who began their end-of-year tour with a 50-18 win over Italy in Udine on Saturday. The following Saturday Ireland entertain a dangerous Fijian side who made history with a first win over Wales in Cardiff on Sunday by 24-19, so inflicting on Warren Gatland’s side a 10th successive Test defeat.
Finally, Joe Schmidt brings a Wallabies side sprinkled with stardust to Dublin on Saturday, November 30th, and who kick-started their end-of-year tour with the best performance and result of his reign to date in Saturday’s thrilling 42-37 win over England in Twickenham.
Perhaps most of all though, Ireland could be somewhat damaged by last Friday’s 23-13 surprisingly tame and ring-rusty loss to the All Blacks. That sounds almost ridiculous to say given it was the first home loss in 20 matches but sometimes the psychological wounds can cut deeper when a team surrenders a long unbeaten run, especially as the World Cup quarter-final rematch against the Kiwis looked the marquee fixture of the autumn.
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Team sport is littered with examples of this, be it the Arsenal “Invincibles” after their 49-game unbeaten run came to an end, or indeed the current Manchester City team, which Andy Farrell supports, albeit there are many examples to the contrary.
“Good teams bounce back, don’t they?” countered Farrell, not unreasonably, in response to this concern. “So, we’ll see what we’re about. We’ve tended to do that in the past.
“It’s amazing isn’t it because we’re the ones that’s brought the expectation, so we’ve got to get back on the horse and build it again,” added Farrell, a tad irritated by the line of questioning. “After one game, it’s amazing really isn’t it that we’re talking about s**t like that.”
Why Ireland won’t push the panic button after All Blacks defeat
Maintaining the theme, Farrell said he expected to see “a bit of character that we know we’ve got”, adding, “we know what we’re about. After any type of defeat, you want to see a reaction and we’ll need a reaction because we’ve got a good team coming here next week.”
Besides, Ireland only have to go back to last July’s tour to South Africa as an example of how a game within a week can also be the best cure for a losing team. “Yeah, it is, that’s the medicine that everyone wants, another game,” said Farrell, who also refuted any notion that the unbeaten home record had started to weigh on his team in any way.
“No, the pressure’s on ourselves at home to perform and do ourselves justice. We’ve been pretty good at that. We came out on the wrong side of the result and rightly so because the opposition deserved to win.”
Nevertheless, even Farrell conceded that aspects of Ireland’s performance last Friday were very out of character, not least as his players have invariably retained an ability to be “next moment focused” in winning 22 of their previous 25 matches.
Farrell admitted that “compounding errors” was what disappointed him the most.
Too many penalties, lineout issues, poor field positioning, 317m lost in contact metres - the data around Ireland’s loss #IREvNZ #IREvNZL https://t.co/Cx4COf8zxX
— Brett Igoe (@brettruganalyst) November 9, 2024
“Our lack of accuracy on the back of how we made ourselves feel is something that we’ve been very good at actually; staying pretty level-headed. Through the good times and the bad times, it’s something that we’ve been pretty good at, to keep managing our way through the game. But I thought we compounded too much stuff and therefore our mood wasn’t what it should have been, and both of those things aren’t right.”
The Irish bench, with three centurions and 498 caps going into the match, had seemingly been designed to close the match out rather than retrieve it.
“I think some of them came on a little bit too desperate,” admitted the Irish coach of his replacements. “There were one or two errors or penalties or whatever, but that wasn’t just the bench, that was throughout the game with the team as a whole anyway.”
Los Pumas may not have the illustrious name or mystique of the All Blacks but they brushed aside an Italian side who had made strides under the former Argentinian outhalf Gonzalo Quesada to add them to the scalps of France, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa this year.
“I think they play some really good rugby,” said Farrell. “We’ve been watching a lot of them lately through the [Rugby] Championship. Obviously, they have taken their game to another level and had some big wins and they’ll certainly be coming here looking for a victory. So hence why we have to get back on the horse.”
While Farrell admitted that he “sometimes” raises his voice with his players, he hadn’t done so during the interval, or post-match on Friday night. He had, by all accounts, cracked the whip in the week after the first Test defeat in South Africa but didn’t know whether he would do so this week.
“I’ll see how I feel and the mood,” he said, smiling. “But no, sometimes you need a bit of help to try and pick the mood up. Sometimes a bollocking is when you get a reaction. Sometimes you need to nurture as well.”
This week will be a test of that and, now, much else besides.
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