Andy Farrell blames errors across the board for Ireland's tough night in Paris, after they squandered numerous opportunities to get the requisite victory they needed to win the Six Nations championship.
Speaking in the press conference after the game, Farrell said "There were enough opportunities there for us to win two games. We weren't clinical enough with the opportunities that we had and if you don't take your chances in big games then you come unstuck eventually."
"It's an obvious thing to say but we had enough entries into the French 22 and didn't come away with the points. It's as simple as that really."
Trying to make sense of why things didn't go their way, Farrell said: "At half-time the chat was about belief — it was a bit off. And then obviously the score just after half-time wasn't great. We killed our own momentum at times and then that stopped the fluidity of things.
"The errors that we made were across the board. It wasn't just one area but being clinical in the final third of the pitch was the main point."
Once such error came just before half time, when Ireland came away with nothing, after they opted to kick to the corner, rather than taking a kick a goal from a penalty. Farrell was hesitant to criticise the decision, both when speaking during the press conference and in his interview with Virgin Media after the final whistle:
"There's always decisions to be made and we've made plenty of those decisions in the past and won because of them. I back the players to understand the feel and the flow of the game. We'd been down there and scored a try from a pick-and-go in that first half, and obviously with the momentum at the end of that first half, we thought we could get the seven points. I back the players to make those calls."
After a frustrating night, Ireland won't have to wait long for a chance to put things right, with their first game in the Autumn Nations Cup against in Wales on Saturday 13 November. Reflecting on what they need to work on, Farrell said: "We fluffed our lines a little bit. Dealing with the big moments, that'll be key for us going into the next month."
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