Murray Kinsella Reports from the Aviva Stadium

IRELAND BOSS ANDY Farrell acknowledged that his team remain short of their best after they edged home against Argentina, holding on for a 22-19 win in Dublin.

The narrow victory means Ireland bounced back from last weekend’s disappointing defeat to New Zealand but it was another inconsistent Irish performance.

Three clinical first-half tries left Ireland in control with a 22-9 lead at half time but they failed to score in the second half and had to cling on with the clock in the red and Argentina attacking in their 22.

Farrell said the overriding feeling was delight after beating an Argentina team that has improved hugely under head coach Felipe Contepomni but the Ireland boss knows there is much more in his team as they look towards clashes with Fiji and Australia.

In making just one change to his starting XV after the New Zealand game, Farrell had admitted many of his players were lucky to be going again tonight. He got the response he wanted from them only “in parts” against Argentina.

“I think if I can try and sum up where we’re at, I think when you’re looking at two top sides that we’ve played in the first two weeks, it looks like we’re still trying to find our feet in the intensity of the full 80 minutes, for that top 1% gains.

“Obviously, New Zealand and Argentina have been playing those games for the last five months.

“It looks like our lads, some of them, are a little bit shy of that type of intensity. Hopefully, we’ll build it through this month and we’ll see the best of it in the next two games.”

Rónan Kelleher and Hugo Keenan. Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO

Watching his side concede 13 penalties for the second week in a row was frustrating for Farrell.

Those penalty concessions lifted pressure on Argentina too often and allowed Contepomi’s men to flip the pressure back onto Ireland.

“It’s something that we’ve been outstanding on over the last 10 years actually,” said Farrell.

“But certainly it’s not done out of players going out there to be ill-disciplined. It’s coming from the right place, if that may sound stupid.

“All they’re trying to do is do the right thing by their team, They just need to be a little more patient individually and trust the team and what they’re about.”

There were a few other overlaps from last weekend as Ireland forced things in attack at times, giving up a few promising positions in the second half with those errors.

That was another frustration for Farrell but he was keen to stress the good stuff too.

“There were a few things we needed to learn from last week and some things that we didn’t address on the field,” said Farrell. “But we said last week we had a chance of winning ugly. We did that this week, that’s a plus.

“We showed really good intent in how we started the game. We were direct, we were piling into them, we were hard to handle playing off quick ball. On the back of that, if we get that Tadhg Beirne score [that was ruled out for a knock-on], it justifies the score a little bit because of the dominance that we had.

“But we know the kind of side they are, they’ve improved out of sight.

“And the pressure they put on us, and that we put ourselves, obviously brought them back into the game and to cut a long story short, we held our nerve towards the end and just about got there.”