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Head coach Andy Farrell rued an error-strewn performance after below-par Ireland slipped to a deflating 23-13 defeat to New Zealand in Dublin.
The Six Nations champions went into their autumn opener as favourites before crashing to a first home loss in 20 matches dating back more than three years.
Will Jordan’s 37th try in 39 Tests sealed a deserved success for the All Blacks at a sold-out Aviva Stadium, adding to six Damian McKenzie penalties.
Ireland, who were beaten by the Kiwis in the quarter-finals of last year’s World Cup in France, conceded 13 penalties across the course of a stop-start affair and were unable to build on a 13-9 lead following Josh van der Flier’s score early in the second half.
Farrell said: “(I’m) disappointed. It’s easily summed up with the mood of the dressing room, really: it’s pretty sombre.
“The lads are gutted, we’re all gutted together. I thought we prepped well, trained well, I thought we were excited about the game and we were.
“We didn’t manage to put our game out on the field. Obviously the opposition have a big say in that but I thought we compounded too many errors and almost suppressed ourselves a little bit at times.
“The accuracy wasn’t what was needed to win a big Test match like that.”
Ireland had a man advantage when Van der Flier plundered the game’s opening try in the 43rd minute due to Jordie Barrett being sin-binned for a high tackle on Garry Ringrose just before the break.
However, repeated infringements sucked life out of the capacity crowd and decisively swung the encounter back in New Zealand’s favour.
Defeat for Ireland was only a second on home soil during the Farrell era following a 15-13 loss to France in February 2021.
“It’s a funny old feeling because we don’t tend to have it too much in that dressing room,” said Farrell.
“That’s life, congratulations to New Zealand. There’s no excuses for us. The opposition, long story short, deserved to win. I actually thought the game was stop-start, it was a bit scrappy.
“There were a lot of errors, because of the weather a little bit. It was a slow enough game at times and we needed to be in charge of looking after our energy and we didn’t do that well enough.”
Talk of last year’s thrilling World Cup clash fuelled the build-up to a fixture which has developed into a genuine rivalry in recent years after being dominated by the All Blacks for more than a century.
Simmering tensions threatened to boil over in the 13th minute during a scuffle involving Kiwi captain Scott Barrett and Ireland’s Joe McCarthy.
Barrett accused fellow lock McCarthy of deliberately targeting New Zealand fly-half McKenzie following a ruck.
“I don’t usually take exception but I saw something that was, I guess, below the line for me,” said Barrett, whose side built on last weekend’s 24-22 win over England at Twickenham to knock Ireland off the top of the world rankings.
“I guess you had to make a point of ‘you’re not targeting our 10 tonight’. It looked like Damian was on the ground and Joe cleaned him up. From where I saw it it looked like it was around his head. It looked like a bit of a shoulder to a man on the ground.”
