Ireland ‘beat up’ by England
Ireland coach Joe Schmidt paid a compliment to fellow New Zealander John Mitchell after admitting England ‘‘beat us up’’ in the Six Nations rout in Dublin.
Schmidt said Ireland’s first Six Nations defeat at home for six years was hugely disappointing, but admitted England fully deserved their 32-20 win yesterday.
Asked by BBC Sport if the better team had won, Schmidt said: ‘‘Yeah, today. They were better, for sure. They beat us today, they beat us up.
‘‘I think we did get outmuscled. They had a real physical intent right from the start.’’
England coach Eddie Jones refused to accept his team were now Six Nations favourites and was not getting carried away with the 12-point win.
‘‘I never worry too much about the margins, it’s more about how you are able to dominate the opposition, and I thought particularly, in the second half of the first half, we had control of that game.
‘‘We started the game well, but fell off the game a bit and let them back into it, but we reasserted our authority with that try just before halftime,’’ said Jones, who said it was ‘‘where we probably won the game’’.
Schmidt said England ‘‘did pretty well to play the man early on’’ and said wing Keith Earls, who left the field injured at halftime, was ‘‘pretty sore’’. He felt England ‘‘did a great job slowing the ball down’’ at times, which made them dangerous ‘‘when you have the physical capacity they have, to get off the line.’’
Schmidt acknowledged the excellence of England’s defence.
England’s defence coach John Mitchell had accused Ireland of being ‘‘boring’’ in the leadup to the match, but Schmidt dismissed his jibe as ‘‘banter’’.
‘‘It’s not often I’ve seen a game where so many physical, dominant tackles occurred. Mitch has obviously got them stirred up and they responded incredibly well,’’ he told BBC Sport.
Schmidt, World Rugby’s coach of the year in 2018, said alarm bells rang after any defeat, ‘‘whether it’s narrow or emphatic’’, and he claimed Ireland would have to respond the way they did in their first home win over the All Blacks last November.
‘‘We haven’t tended to start competitions well. Even last November against Argentina, I don’t think we played particularly well, but once we got that under our belts, I think we responded really well the next week against the All Blacks. It’s going to have to be something similar [for next week’s Six Nations match against Scotland].’’
In Edinburgh, Blair Kinghorn expressed his delight at becoming the first Scotland player to score a European rugby championship hattrick for 30 years after his treble opener against Italy.
Kinghorn – selected on Scotland’s wing after an injury to Kilted Kiwi Sean Maitland – starred in the 33-20 bonus point victory.
"It was awesome to score three times; I’m over the moon," Kinghorn told BBC Sport.
In the opening match of the championship on Saturday, George North scored two gift tries as Wales rallied from 16-0 down to beat nervy France 24-19. Two of Wales’ three tries were donated by French mistakes, allowing Wales to pull off the biggest comeback win since 2000 when the tournament expanded.