IRELAND’S LACK OF impact subs contributed to the side’s poor performance against New Zealand, Bernard Jackman said on Monday’s Rugby Weekly Extra, the podcast for subscribers to The 42.
“It was as bad a performance as Ireland have probably had under Farrell,” Jackman said.
“I know there’s an excuse that we came in cold, but November is usually the best opportunity to beat the southern hemisphere teams.
“I looked at the bench and saw Iain Henderson, Peter O’Mahony, Conor Murray and Cian Healy. My mindset was: ‘Well, we better be ahead’, because we don’t have the game changers that other teams have.
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“And that’s not Farrell’s fault, it’s just where we are. But if we’re going to get back to No 1 in the world and be a force at the next World Cup, we need to find athletes who are at the peak of their powers or will be at the peak of their powers over the next few years.
You can’t keep relying on Healy, O’Mahony, Murray or Henderson. They’ve been amazing but the All Blacks lost Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick and Richie Mo’unga after the World Cup and still look exciting now.”
Jackman added: “Physically, I felt like New Zealand bullied us. You just felt like Ireland were soaking tackles. From the Irish point of view, they’ll say ‘Aw, fine margins’ and they will dispute some of the penalty calls.
“But you could see Farrell’s frustrations. What concerns me was that he was concerned in the week beforehand, a bit [frustrated] listening to what some of the press were saying. Did he sense that they were undercooked or weren’t ready?
“What we saw was a very untypical Irish performance and there’s only so much juice you can get out of a lemon and maybe we’ve got the max we can out of this group.
“But maybe we haven’t. I would trust Farrell’s ability to get us back to a certain level on Friday night, but when they do play poorly like that you have to start wondering what is the next step in terms of selection and player development.”
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'As bad a performance as Ireland have probably had under Farrell'
IRELAND’S LACK OF impact subs contributed to the side’s poor performance against New Zealand, Bernard Jackman said on Monday’s Rugby Weekly Extra, the podcast for subscribers to The 42.
“It was as bad a performance as Ireland have probably had under Farrell,” Jackman said.
“I know there’s an excuse that we came in cold, but November is usually the best opportunity to beat the southern hemisphere teams.
“I looked at the bench and saw Iain Henderson, Peter O’Mahony, Conor Murray and Cian Healy. My mindset was: ‘Well, we better be ahead’, because we don’t have the game changers that other teams have.
“And that’s not Farrell’s fault, it’s just where we are. But if we’re going to get back to No 1 in the world and be a force at the next World Cup, we need to find athletes who are at the peak of their powers or will be at the peak of their powers over the next few years.
You can’t keep relying on Healy, O’Mahony, Murray or Henderson. They’ve been amazing but the All Blacks lost Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick and Richie Mo’unga after the World Cup and still look exciting now.”
Jackman added: “Physically, I felt like New Zealand bullied us. You just felt like Ireland were soaking tackles. From the Irish point of view, they’ll say ‘Aw, fine margins’ and they will dispute some of the penalty calls.
“But you could see Farrell’s frustrations. What concerns me was that he was concerned in the week beforehand, a bit [frustrated] listening to what some of the press were saying. Did he sense that they were undercooked or weren’t ready?
“What we saw was a very untypical Irish performance and there’s only so much juice you can get out of a lemon and maybe we’ve got the max we can out of this group.
“But maybe we haven’t. I would trust Farrell’s ability to get us back to a certain level on Friday night, but when they do play poorly like that you have to start wondering what is the next step in terms of selection and player development.”
If you are not already a subscriber then sign up here to listen to this podcast and enjoy unlimited access to The 42.
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