Andy Farrell dismisses accusation that Ireland were ‘shambolic’ and instead insists his players ‘showed bottle for their country’ in a ‘chaotic’ situation
Ireland out-half Sam Prendergast and, inset, head coach Andy Farrell.
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell has insisted his team’s card-troubled performance in their 13-24 Autumn Nations Series loss to the Springboks wasn’t shambolic, adding that it was amazing to ‘win’ the second half 6-5.
The Irish were shown four yellow cards – with one upgraded to a 20-minute red – during a first half that ended with Farrell’s side defending with 12 players against 15.
It was too much of an ask, as the half finished with referee Matthew Carley running in under the posts to award a penalty try after yet another scrum infringement.
The second half began with South Africa continuing to benefit from the numerical advantage as they ran in their fourth try before the match was eventually restored to a 15 versus 15 contest.
Scrum hell
But there was still further scrum hell for Ireland as another prop was sin-binned before a late rally saw them hammering away in the opposition 22 without scoring to cut the 11-point margin to a one-score finale.
Asked if the first half “looked like something borderline shambolic in terms of the yellow cards, everything was going wrong, nothing was going right, is it harsh to say shambolic?”, Farrell replied: “I’d say chaotic. Yeah, I won’t repeat your word because I think you’re wrong.
“I haven’t seen a game like that ever. You think you have seen it all, and I haven’t seen a game like that ever. But I suppose first and foremost, you look at yourself and why things have happened, so we will do that and make sure we learn the lessons from that. But my overriding thought of the game is that I am unbelievably proud, so for you to start the conversation off like that, it doesn’t sit well.”
Invited to say if the experience of the card trouble would stand to Ireland in the long run, the head coach replied: “If you can’t learn from that, then you are in the wrong place really. For all sorts of reasons, I thought going down to 12 men, how the lads came out and showed their bottle for their country, certainly in the first 10 minutes of that second half, it was absolutely amazing.
“You could see with the effort they put in that the crowd recognised and supported that. To be able to win a second half 6-5 under those sort of circumstances is, I know it doesn’t tell a full story of the second half, but it was actually amazing really that that happened, that that occurred.
“But the lessons to learn are when you fight so hard to give yourself a chance, you know you are at 72 minutes trying to overplay probably in your own 22, you have still got time on the clock to put ourselves back in the right field positions.
“We overplayed a little bit and wasted a little bit of time. But then we find a way and with four minutes to go, we had a glaring chance to score under the posts. If we score that with four minutes to go, who knows what could have happened with a little bit of momentum but we couldn’t do that, so all credit has to go to South Africa.”
What was the experience of coping with the cards like? “You are just trying to get a bit of order to people who are playing in different positions, positions that actually don’t exist because of a 12-man nature.
“People were covering two-stroke-three positions, different positions in attack and different positions in defence, so you are just trying to get a bit of order and let the lads understand who is coming back at what time and how we need to manage the game in that period. And amongst all that, I thought they did outstandingly well.”
Before Ireland’s card problems began with the James Ryan yellow that was soon upgraded to a 20-minute red, a decision that had the double whammy blow of having a try scored by Tadhg Beirne ruled out, there was a controversial tackle from Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu on Tommy O’Brien that the referee deemed only worthy of a penalty.
Asked if it should have been a yellow card, Farrell replied: “You are asking the question because you thought so as well.”
It was at the start of the week when South Africa questioned whether they were being treated unfairly by the referees. The accusation came after they had suffered permanent red cards in successive matches, with Lood de Jager sent off against France and Franco Mostert banished versus Italy.
The De Jager card stuck, and he was suspended, but the Mostert card was overturned. Following South Africa’s suggestion that they weren’t getting the rub of the green, the Irish felt compelled to bring this up as a pre-game topic with the officials.
“Well, we brought it up with the referees before the game and they said that that would never be a factor because this is a separate game – and I’ll let you be the judge of that,” said Farrell when asked if he thought Ireland’s card trouble was a reaction to what the South Africans had said earlier in the week.
On the scrum, which saw two Irish props yellow carded and a penalty try award, Farrell explained: “You can talk about all sorts of stuff that you have talked to the referees beforehand and during the week and say those are the similar type of pictures etc, but you have got to look at yourself first.
“You have to not give the referee the access to see you in whatever type of picture that he obviously saw us in and he saw a dominant scrum. Whether there is illegalities within all that we have got to see past that and better than that.”
Dwelling on the match overall, Farrell added: “You can look at all sorts of different situations within the game and you can say that that was the turning point, the yellow card that went to red was a try that we had scored and had called back.
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“We started the game pretty well, but on the backfoot as far as under the pump with the scrum, and then a few stupid errors from ourselves, you know, playing the ball through the ruck and we had three offside penalties.
“They are the manageable ones that you don’t give a team like that access but we did and they try and cause a bit of chaos within the game, certainly at scrum time but in general as well, and I thought we just lost our composure a little bit as far as that is concerned, certainly at the end as far as our shape is concerned.
“Some of the stuff that we did really well last week (against Australia) didn’t really transfer this week. Our kicking game was a bit long and a bit off, our high ball stuff was way better last week, and our conversion in the 22 was way better last week. But that is the type of pressure that a world-class side like South Africa bring.”
READ MORE: Dominant Springboks win with plenty to spare after bruised Ireland left drowning in card farce
