‘We’ve got to be harsh on ourselves this week’

Farrell says second-half performance was way below Ireland’s standards as he looks for big finish against Scots in third-place play-off

IN this remote world we live in, it is often difficult to gauge the mood at the other end of the line. Yesterday, even the distance of a ‘Teams’ call couldn’t disguise Andy Farrell’s anger as he sifted through the debris of a damaging second-half performance against Georgia. The former England international’s tongue must have been in bits as he held things together just enough to critically assess his team without giving us his true feelings on what he’d just seen.

The home truths will be delivered behind the dressing-room door and in the video analysis room where players will be reminded of the standards they’re expected to keep when they pull on the Ireland jersey – even the hideous black and yellow effort that was on show at the Aviva Stadium yesterday.

The challenge for Farrell is criticising without further damaging the team’s fragile belief system.

Failing to break Georgia down will do little for their confidence as they go into a shortened week of preparation for a Scotland team who were furious at losing on their last visit to Dublin and will fancy their chances on Saturday. So, Farrell wants his team to learn quickly so they can finish with something tangible they can carry forward into 2021.

“One hundred per cent, yeah,” the coach said.

“Therefore, we’ll be honest with each other and work out the reasons why.

Chances

“We’ve a game to finish the tournament on a high against a very good team in Scotland and that will take us into the first game, Wales in the Six Nations.

“But, we’ve got to be harsh on ourselves this week and understand the reasons a Georgian side was able to slow us down and earned the right to slow us down in that second half.

“There was some good stuff out there in that first half. but how we can convert those chances is something we need to look at as well.

“To give them the energy they needed to get that second half going, that’s the big work-on I would have thought.”

Farrell (right) wasn’t clutching at straws when he pointed too a decent first-half effort, but he knows nows his team have a worrying ng tendency of going to sleep p in the third quarter of f games.

While last week he felt t Ireland were guilty of miss- ing the big picture as they ey tried to outmuscle England, and, yesterday he spoke aboutut players needing to have the “courage of their convictions” when making decisions.

They are being asked to play what they see, but after having their every movement micro-managed by the previous regime it seems like they’re struggling to cope with the responsibility that comes with freedom.

“Head’s up rugby, I don’t know, it’s a loose enough term that,” Farrell said. “It’s decision-making, isn’t it?

“You earn the right to play. On the back of that, are you making the right decision?

“Once or twice, I think we’re making the wrong decision. We’re making things up and seeing things that are not really there.

“The game of rugby is pretty simple, isn’t it? If there’s nothing on, you’ve got to have conviction in your carry and make sure your breakdown is impressive enough and then you can try and create something next time.

“So, I don’t want to try and complicate it too much because otherwise you end up with that second-half perform a performance .”

LikLike his coach, captain JamJames Ryan did not sugarar-coat the performance.

Although he was satiisfied with the first-half eeffort, the Leinster secoond-row was unhappy wiwith the team’s execution afteafter half-time.

“We wwill be hard on ourselves, it’s not the standards that it should be,” he said.

“We wanted to bounce back (from Twickenham) much better than that, so yeah, we’ll have to take an honest look at ourselves tonight and tomorrow.

“If we want to finish the year on a really positive note next week with Scotland coming to town, we’ll have to be a lot better than that.

“We would be honest with ourselves.

“We have to be a lot better than that. We started well, that first half went well, but we need to be much better in that second half.

“Yeah, there’s so much to improve there. Probably, the six-day turnaround is a good thing. We’ll have to park that tonight and take the lessons from it. It’s great to have the game next week, Scotland are playing some good stuff and will back themselves coming to the Aviva. “We’ll see how we react.” Ryan will probably hand the leadership duties back to Johnny Sexton this week as the skipper is fit for the finale.

Together, they will look for solutions in the dressing-room to produce a performance against Scotland that would reduce some of the scrutiny on their embattled coach.

The 24-year-old is convinced they are on the right track.

“Look, I have no doubt we are going in the right direction. Today was just disappointing. Sometimes you have those days,” he said.

“They are all very fixable issues. Today it was the ruck – a massive part of our game that we can get right. Being more efficient in that middle third of the pitch, having a bit of variety, putting the ball in behind them and knowing when to play.

“We know ourselves what is going wrong. That is great for us, there is so much to work on and this week is a great opportunity to finish the year on a high.”

They have a lot to do to make it happen in order to give themselves a chance to have a better 2021.