BRIAN O’DRISCOLL COULD not hide his disappointment after Ireland’s dramatic one-score defeat to the world champions earlier.
Declan Kidney’s side fought back to level the scores at 19-19 after 79 minutes, before Dan Carter struck a drop goal to earn the win for a 14-man New Zealand.
“Gutted alright,” said the Leinster centre afterwards. “To concede early in the second half and then fight back to get on level terms and then concede the way we did at the end is very very disappointing.
“It’s such a massive improvement and I’m very proud of the lads, for the improvement from last week and we still have one Test to go so we’ll take a huge amount form that game. I think we let ourselves down last week and let the jersey down a little bit. We talked about that this week and talked about concentrating on our own game.
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“We had them in trouble a few times but you know the scoreline still says an All Black victory which is difficult to take considering the amount of effort that went and the way we fought our way back into the game. But that’s Test football.
“Huge credit to the guys — Mike Ross coming in hasn’t played in a lot of weeks and to play the way he did for 80 minutes is a great effort from him. But it was one to 15, guys really dug in and you know we talked about workrate this week and there was huge workrate from our pack and they set the platform,” he added.
Brian O'Driscoll left 'gutted' by last-gasp Christchurch defeat
BRIAN O’DRISCOLL COULD not hide his disappointment after Ireland’s dramatic one-score defeat to the world champions earlier.
Declan Kidney’s side fought back to level the scores at 19-19 after 79 minutes, before Dan Carter struck a drop goal to earn the win for a 14-man New Zealand.
“Gutted alright,” said the Leinster centre afterwards. “To concede early in the second half and then fight back to get on level terms and then concede the way we did at the end is very very disappointing.
“It’s such a massive improvement and I’m very proud of the lads, for the improvement from last week and we still have one Test to go so we’ll take a huge amount form that game. I think we let ourselves down last week and let the jersey down a little bit. We talked about that this week and talked about concentrating on our own game.
“We had them in trouble a few times but you know the scoreline still says an All Black victory which is difficult to take considering the amount of effort that went and the way we fought our way back into the game. But that’s Test football.
“Huge credit to the guys — Mike Ross coming in hasn’t played in a lot of weeks and to play the way he did for 80 minutes is a great effort from him. But it was one to 15, guys really dug in and you know we talked about workrate this week and there was huge workrate from our pack and they set the platform,” he added.
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All Blacks Christchurch Dan Carter Declan Kidney Drama New Zealand Ronan O'Gara