TRIAL & HERROR

Hooker Rob vows Irish will fix Brisbane failings

ROB HERRING last night insisted Ireland will fix the problems that led to their first defeat in 13 Test matches.

Joe Schmidt’s side face an uphill battle to rescue the threetest series as they move on to Melbourne.

The Grand Slam winners were unable to muster a try during a bruising encounter at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday and Ulster hooker Herring believes they left plenty of points behind.

Ireland were twice denied by the television match official while Joey Carbery missed a second half penalty and their handling let them down under pressure at key moments.

But Herring is confident the Six Nations champions can turn things around.

He said: “There was a fair bit of disappointment in the changing room, Joe came in and said we have some good things to work on now.

“That’s the beauty of it, it’s a three-test series and we’ve just got to get better now. We’ve got to improve on what we let ourselves down on in this game and move on.

“We need to convert pressure into points, we had a couple of good opportunities in their 22 and just coughed the ball up for one reason or another.

“That’s the key thing for us, converting those opportunities. We have to be confident, we’ve been building for a long time.”

Michael Cheika’s Australia were the more clinical team in attack but it was their defensive effort and brutish physicality that drew most comment from the Irish camp after the game.

“Defensively, they put us under a lot of pressure,” Herring said. “They came out firing with a good defensive line and some good hits.

“We struggled to get our way into the game from there, we did hang on for a bit but I felt like Australia were always in the ascendancy.

“We knew coming into the game that any sort of loose ball, they thrive on that. They’ve very dangerous players in the backs and it showed. They took their opportunities well. They took their opportunities better than we did.”

But Wallaby centre Kurtley Beale is expecting a backlash in Melbourne.

“The Irish will be coming back hungry, keen to get the result,” he said. “The series isn’t over yet, the group’s fully aware of that.”

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