England 23; Ireland 22
Modest always in victory, truthful in defeat… that was Andy Farrell’s modus operandi as he praised England as deserving winners. “To cut a long story short, I actually thought England deserved to win,” he said matter-of-factly after the curtain had come down on a disappointing ending to this heavyweight joust in south London.
Pragmatic as ever, he then turned the conversation to this weekend’s showdown with Scotland where a win will guarantee Ireland victory in the Six Nations Championship.
However the Holy Grail of back-to-back Grand Slams evaporated in the gathering gloom of late Saturday afternoon in Twickenham as Marcus Smith’s drop goal saw England squeak home by the narrowest of margins in a grandstand finish to the game.
Although never playing with their normal fluidity and authority, Ireland led 12-8 and even when we went 17-8 ahead with the first of James Lowe’s brace of tries, there was something feeling not quite right among the players in green, who soon after were pegged back with a converted try to put the game back in the melting pot.
When we recovered despite a stupid indiscretion from skipper Peter O’Mahony to give England superiority in numbers and in possession to lead thanks to Lowe’s second touchdown, for once we didn’t do the right thing with possession to close out the game.
Instead Conor Murray kicked for touch, allowing England to regain the ball and following a litany of penalties they worked the play to drop kick distance and Smith stuck the dagger in Ireland hearts with the final kick of the game.
Overall looking at the game, the Ireland Head Coach was sanguine about the result. “We fought back unbelievably well against the run of play sometimes. Certainly coming back in at half-time like that. And again in the second half, finding a way to get ourselves in front. I thought England deserved it with the pressure that they had and created, so congratulations to them.
“Certainly when you're coming off the back of a defeat it tends to concentrate the mind a little bit - hopefully it does for us next week. We always prepare for every game for everyone to be at their best. I thought they were super tonight, I thought they were physical, they were challenging on the gain line and played a nice brand of rugby as well."
He went on: "You talk about the Grand Slam stuff, well every game matters. We want to win everything and we've never shied away from that. Today was obviously one of those games that we wanted to win but that's life. You dust yourself down. We've been very good at winning and moving on to the next one.
“We said from the beginning that we'd like to be in with a chance of winning the competition on the last day and here we are. Look, the lads are realists, they'll learn the lessons quickly."
Skipper O'Mahony was yellow-carded after 58th minutes and then substituted and was clearly the most disappointed man in Twickers after the game.
"We spoke about our discipline, obviously it was a big 'in' for them,” Farrell said. “We found it hard to get consistency in our phase play. I thought we struck quite well off set-piece but we didn't seem to get into a lot of phases.”
Ultimately Farrell and Ireland fans will bemoan the fact that the 6:2 subs bench split was the wrong call on the day with Calvin Nash off in the first five minutes and then later his replacement Ciarán Frawley failing HIAs tests. Had we gone for a 5:3 split between forwards and backs, we could have had someone to play on the wing instead of being forced to bring Conor Murray on to play scrum half with Jamison Gibson-Parks forced out to cover the right wing.
Murray slowed down the Ireland delivery while Gibson-Parks darting runs were also missed at the base of the action for virtually the entire second half. A day when lady luck didn’t shine her torch on Irish planning for sure.
Out-half Jack Crowley kept us in with by kicking four first-half penalties to give Ireland a 12-8 lead and Lowe’s tries set up for victory. But there was a sting in the trail as tries by George Furbank and Ben Earl got the home team back to a teasing two-point deficit.
The defeat which followed meant it was our first loss in two years in this competition but all that can be corrected with a victory over the Scots on Saturday which would cement us as table-toppers for the second year in succession.
Ireland: H Keenan; C Nash, R Henshaw, B Aki, J Lowe; J Crowley, J Gibson-Park; A Porter, D Sheehan, T Furlong; J McCarthy, T Beirne; P O'Mahony (capt), J van der Flier, C Doris Replacements: R Kelleher, C Healy, F Bealham, I Henderson, R Baird, J Conan, C Murray, C. Frawley.
