Farrell’s Irish ‘can beat anyone’ now

IRELAND head coach Andy Farrell says his history-making side ‘back themselves against anyone’ after setting up a mouthwatering series decider against New Zealand. The Irish ended their wait for a first away victory over the All Blacks with Saturday’s stunning 23-12 success in Dunedin. A milestone victory came just seven days after the tourists were blitzed 42-19 in Auckland to leave the three-match contest tantalisingly poised at 1-1. Farrell is braced for a Kiwi backlash during next weekend’s Wellington finale but insists his players are brimming with belief. He said: ‘We always get a response, don’t we? Everyone knows that, history tells you that. We’re used to it by now. We’ll look forward to that. ‘We’ve created a little bit of history for ourselves, little old Ireland, but we’ve earned the right to take it to the last weekend to see what we can do in the final week. The players back themselves against anyone and the more we can keep giving them these occasions of playing the best teams in the world, the better they’ll get.’ Ireland benefited from playing against 14 men for much of the match following Angus Ta’avao’s 31st-minute red card, which followed fellow All Blacks Leicester Fainga’anuku and Ofa Tu’ungafasi being sin-binned. Yet they still endured some panicky moments and only led 10-7 at half-time before Andrew Porter’s second try calmed the nerves. Farrell has been heartened by the growing composure within his ranks. ‘The most impressive thing that we are doing pretty well is understanding where we’re at, each moment at a time, staying calm and not getting too overawed or frustrated with errors or decisions or not executing,’ said the Englishman. ‘We’re pretty good at trying to stay neutral and stay on task and it’s helping us to play in these big games and compete.’