Ireland suffered a 40-21 defeat to New Zealand at Eden Park in the Nations Championship as head coach Andy Farrell admitted his side’s inaccuracy and mistakes proved too costly against a clinical All Blacks side.
Head coach Andy Farrell was left ruing a performance littered with errors after Ireland suffered a comprehensive 40-21 defeat to New Zealand in the third round of the Nations Championship.
The All Blacks crossed for four first-half tries through Patrick Tuipulotu, Ardie Savea, Will Jordan and Asafo Aumua as they maintained their remarkable unbeaten run at Eden Park, which now stands at 53 Test matches.
Jack Conan scored for Ireland in a physical opening 40 minutes, before Joe McCarthy and Hugo Keenan went over in an improved second half, with fly-half Sam Prendergast converting all three tries.
However, following unconvincing bonus-point wins over Australia and Japan, Farrell’s men were thoroughly outplayed in Auckland, with Damian McKenzie and Anton Lienert-Brown adding further tries for the hosts.
“Inaccurate is the word,” said Farrell, speaking to ITV, reports the Irish Mirror.
“Continuity, it just wasn’t flowing for all sorts of reasons, whether that be discipline reasons, spilt ball, throwing the ball into touch, et cetera.
“The character and fight is there for all to see, hence the comeback and win against Australia, but you can’t make so many errors against a quality side like New Zealand. Congratulations to them.”
It marked Ireland’s first visit to New Zealand since their historic 2-1 series victory in 2022. They lost 42-19 at Eden Park during that tour and have now endured four successive losses to the All Blacks, including a quarter-final elimination at the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
Following victories over France and Italy, New Zealand claimed their third successive win under newly appointed head coach Dave Rennie.
Farrell said: “Dave is a fantastic coach, you can see what they are trying to do.
“With the speed of ball and movement, it was hard to handle for us. We have got to look at how we adapt and do things better.
“It’s the end of the season now for us, we will re-assess and make sure we learn these lessons, because otherwise what’s the tour for?”.
“All these experiences are fantastic, coming to the southern hemisphere, which is where the World Cup is going to be (next year) – we need to learn those lessons.”
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