Ireland head coach Andy Farrell believes “mental switch-offs” cost his side in their 26-13 defeat by New Zealand in Chicago.
The All Blacks scored three tries to Ireland’s one in Soldier Field, but Farrell’s side had led 13-7 at the hour mark despite spending a quarter of the game playing with 14 after lock Tadhg Beirne had his third-minute yellow card upgraded to a 20-minute red.
Farrell thought his side managed the period with a player light “pretty well” and instead felt the game got away because of a lack of “sharpness” in the final quarter.
With 11 British and Irish Lions in Ireland’s starting side, talk pre-match had been dominated by concerns over how that contingent would fare with so little rugby since the victorious summer series in Australia.
“It’s what we talked about before the game, it’s mental switch-offs, mental sharpness, lapses of concentration for two or three seconds, and you get hurt,” said Farrell.
“I didn’t think it was a fitness problem, it was a sharpness to our game that was the issue.
“It’s something that we were aware of before the game, and it’s something that you learn over the course of a season to get better at, but if you want to win big games like this, on big occasions like here in Soldier Field, that’s what it’s going to take, and we weren’t good enough.”
Farrell, who was coaching Ireland for the first time in 11 months after his Lions sabbatical, said his side will have to move forward “pretty quickly” after what is their third consecutive defeat by the All Blacks dating back to 2023’s World Cup quarter-final in Paris.
Ireland will return home to play Japan, Australia and South Africa through the remainder of this month.
“I’m disappointed to lose any game. When you play a top-tier side, a world-class side like New Zealand, you always want to judge yourself against that type of opposition, and then you put the occasion and all that together and it hurts a little bit more,” Farrell added.
“Understanding why that happened is obviously key for us now, and addressing all that, and making sure that we move forward pretty quickly for what is obviously a pretty important autumn coming up.”
