2 weeks Ago By Irishexaminer.com
No-one will be more keen to move on from New Zealand now than Hugo Keenan. Friday night’s ten-point loss to the Kiwis was his fourth in just 13 months for the Leinster and Ireland full-back, the first coming in a World Cup quarter-final and the other two suffered at the hands of their sevens side at the summer’s Olympic Games. Of the four, this latest one was maybe the most underwhelming in terms of performances with Andy Farrell’s side producing a string of errors throughout the 80 minutes against an All Black side that was hardly purring itself.
“Definitely disappointed,” said Keenan. “It definitely wasn't the performance we were looking for, or that we knew we had in us. I thought our preparation over the last 12 days was actually really good.
Lads have been working hard and we've been getting over our detail, and we were feeling confident. “The belief was there going into the week, and we were definitely not lacking motivation. So it's hard to put your finger on it ,but inaccuracy on the basics and our discipline are two obvious ones that let us down.
And, yeah, they're a top-class side, they were the better side on the day, they deserved their win.” There are two ways to frame it. Ireland are still back-to-back Six Nations champions and a side that drew a two-Test series away to South Africa’s world champions in the summer.
This was, let's not forget, a first home loss in 20 games and a first in Dublin to SANZAAR opposition since 2016. The flip side is that they have now lost three of their last five outings - admittedly to elite sides and two of them (England and South Africa) away from home – and the win against Scotland in March was not exactly top drawer either. Rustiness was hardly a factor either, despite the notion’s liberal airing.
This is a settled side accustomed to each other’s company and nuances and they flew out of the blocks in both halves against the All Blacks, first through Andrew Porter’s electrifying charge down and again when Josh van der Flier scored after the break. There was no reason for them not to kick on. "Yeah, we talked about starting fast.
It's something we probably didn't do in the World Cup game and it was something that we did well when we won over in New Zealand [in 2022]: we came out of the blocks quick, so that was definitely a focus. “It was probably just one or two bits of momentum that we didn't [maintain], we might have made a mistake and given away a penalty and then another one, and it's just losing those momentum battles, wasn't it? “We gave them a few wins and compounded errors, which takes away from those positive bits because there were a lot of brilliant efforts, a lot of small things like Andrew's charge down, the good start to the second-half.” Compounding errors was the theme here.
Losing to Argentina this coming Friday night would fall into that category. The Pumas were once something of a jinx side for Ireland but their only meeting in the last nine Tests stretching back to 2008 was nine years ago in another World Cup quarter-final. Ireland won 53-7 on their last visit here in 2021 but Felipe Contepomi has been getting a tune out of them.
They began their Rugby Championship with a first ever win in New Zealand, put 67 points on the Wallabies and bettered a second-string Bok team at home. “They're obviously playing really good footy at the moment,” said Keenan. “They're high in confidence after beating each of the southern hemisphere sides in the Rugby Championship so they're going to be hungry, coming with a lot of belief.
” For Keenan it will be a rare chance to see Contepomi, a man who played a major role in his development as a player when returning to Leinster, as an assistant coach, six years ago and at a time when the Dubliner was still focusing more on the sevens form of the game. "Felipe was brilliant for me in Leinster, with my development. I give him a huge amount of credit for my development, he was exactly the type of coach I needed at that stage of my career.
"I remember sitting down after every game with him, going through my clips and looking at what I could have done better with him. He was brilliant for Leinster, he's a hugely popular character as well so it will be good to see him next week. "He's obviously done a great job for Argentina and I'm not surprised at all.
He's got a lot of insider knowledge on Irish rugby, so I'm sure he'll be trying to use that. It's exciting, another brilliant Test to come and another side story to it.”.
