DUBLIN :Coach Andy Farrell had hoped for a tough game against Argentina before the British and Irish Lions boarded their flight for Australia and said his still gelling squad had no excuses after getting more than they bargained for in a 28-24 defeat.
“We made it a tough game,” a forthright Farrell said when asked if he got the kind of stern test he wanted and that the group’s limited time together was no kind of mitigating factor.
“I wouldn’t give that excuse. We need to be better than that. They’re Lions players.”
While Farrell said he was pleased with the Lions’ aggressive scrummaging, the list of areas to improve was long: a “clunky” attack, breakdown, misfiring lineout, kicking game, throwing balls blindly away and battles in the air and on the ground.
“It’s too much, it’s too much when it all comes together… The whole story of the game is that we compounded too many errors and in the end we weren’t able to put the pace on the game that we wanted to because of that,” Farrell said.
“We need to be honest because if we’re not honest, how do we gain trust with each other so we have to say it as it is. There were certain things that we said we were going to do and we need to own that.”
“Losing hurts, especially in this jersey so we need to find the solutions pretty quickly.”
Farrell had said he expected the Lions to have a fully fit squad in the next week with Jamison Gibson-Park, Hugo Keenan and Huw Jones working their way back to fitness, and at least appeared to come away unscathed on Friday.
“Health wise we seem to have come away okay,” he said.
Centre Bundee Aki, one of the Lions’ try scorers who said he was disappointed in his own performance and not connecting better with new centre partner Sione Tuipulotu, said Farrell had been just as forthright in the changing room.
“He gives it to us straight, there’s no mucking around and we’re old enough to take it on the chin. Faz (Farrell) set out a challenge for us to win every game and we’ve just got to learn quickly,” the Irish number 12 said.
“You can feel the frustration of the boys in the changing room. (But) that’s the great thing about rugby, there’s always another couple of days to be able to rectify what was wrong so I’m sure we’ll bounce back quickly as a group.”
