BRIAN O’DRISCOLL CRITICISED Ireland’s defence and cited Jared Payne and Jonny Sexton as Ireland’s two big injury losses in the aftermath of Sunday’s disappointing Rugby World Cup exit.

Speaking on Off the Ball, the Irish legend lamented the team’s inept defence as they were comprehensively beaten by Argentina.

“I’ve never seen Ireland defend as narrow as they did and the disappointing thing for me is that you could see it early on. We never actually fixed it throughout the whole game.

“You’ve guys in there that don’t know each other and weren’t big communicators. For me, the two biggest losses were Jonny at 10 and possibly from a defensive point of view, Jared at 13, just being able to pull guys out to the width.

“I’m not shooting down (Keith) Earlsy. He’s played a lot out on the wing so he’s not as up to speed as some people are at 13.”

O’Driscoll also criticised Ireland’s tendency to get “mismatched all over the place”.

“I saw Rory Best and Mike Ross on the edges — that never happens. You’ve got to get your back rowers at worst or your centres to get one on either side, to make sure your wingers can play half in the backfield and you’ve a little bit of gas on the outside. We had none of that.

“It was really frustrating watching it.”

Listen to the full interview here>

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