Ireland on Sunday let a victory slip away, head coach Andy Farrell said after France secured their first win in Dublin since 2011 with a 15-13 victory.
Farrell takes his side to Italy in a fortnight after losing their opening two Six Nations games for the first time.
He said it should not have been the case, as they had fought back from 15-3 down to give themselves a chance of a win.
Photo: Reuters
While he praised the “work-rate and putting their bodies on the line for their country,” the 45-year-old said it is not enough in international rugby.
“Test matches are there to be won, especially at home,” he said.
“We rue a few decisions that we made when some chances came our way,” he added.
He blamed poor decisionmaking in kicking, “sending the forwards into a brick wall” and another poor third quarter of play for their defeat.
Farrell said that few had given his side a chance with neither talismanic flyhalf Johnny Sexton nor scrumhalf Conor Murray playing for the first time in a decade in a Six Nations match.
“Even though people were writing us off this week, we never wrote ourselves off,” he said.
“The game was there to be won. It was a hard-fought contest, but it’s one that slipped away from us at the end,” he added.
Farrell praised flyhalf Billy Burns — who went off early in the second half after failing a Head Injury Assessment — and scrumhalf Jamison Gibson-Park.
Burns had shown few signs in an assured first-half display — one wayward penalty aside — of being affected for missing a kick to touch in the dying seconds of the 21-16 defeat by Wales.
Gibson-Park played the whole 80 minutes, although he could be faulted for Charles Ollivon scoring France’s first try when down to 14 men.
“I was happy with the lads in the first half,” Farrell said.
“They played some great stuff. Obviously the talking point would have been about the halfbacks, that was the discussion certainly towards the end of the week, and I thought Billy and Jamison did excellent,” he said. “Jamison was on for 80 minutes there. I thought he was outstanding.”
Stand-in captain Iain Henderson said that failing to score when France’s Bernard Le Roux was in the penalty box and letting Ollivon touch down was criminal.
“We have to capitalize on their yellow card,” Henderson said.
“Instead of letting them get points, we have to get points in that area, even if it’s a penalty. A try there could change the outcome of the game, how the second half looks and it changes the way France play,” he said.
“Ultimately, it changes the whole game,” he added.
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