Ireland 82 - 8 Romania | Farrell & Sexton post-match presser

congratulations guys, great performance Johnny, how was it going out again after six months? Yes, she did pretty well. Yes, I am delighted to return. I didn't expect the conditions to be like this. It was incredibly hot. warm up in particular um we seemed happy to spend a few minutes we showed some good things um a lot to talk about you also know a lot to improve on the individual front uh and another team we also know next week's challenge is going to go up a couple of levels so we need to get back to being better so look we are very very happy with five points and a good points difference too which you might care about Andy how would you sum up the Good performance I guess on the face of it we always look at it before and After the game, we would be happy with the score and of course we would know it.

In fact, I thought about halftime with a few things to figure out. um uh I thought we stopped the pitch of our game um quite a bit with respect to some areas of our game maybe discipline or um we got a little frantic with our communications certainly after the line breaks some passes on the pitch Etc. I thought afterwards On During the break we were very calm. I thought we showed our intention to be together as a team. How synchronized we were, with the ball in hand, our fitness was excellent and our skill level was pretty good too.

I'm delighted with how. We, um, how we played certainly in the second half, um certainly not in the first two minutes, one more because we have a lot of questions, so one in the back, yeah, hey, Johnny, what was your mindset? when entering the game? Obviously you have. This often comes back after long layoffs, but was there any lingering doubt or something in the back of your mind that it might start to work out not as well as I said last week during the press conference? I have to go and prove it, it doesn't matter if you've trained hard or you know when it comes to the game it's different, the pressure is different, the intensity is different, so I definitely, definitely needed a game, for sure, to prove it. happy with some things and not so happy with a couple of other things, so, like, after every game.

I don't think you've ever played a game where you're 100 happy, so, yeah, we'll do it. go and review the game as individuals and as a team, we enjoyed tonight and we enjoyed watching the other games and we spent time together and then we get back to work on Monday. Hi Andy, congratulations on the win. You got 12 attempts in total, it was the last one. one of the nicer ones where the clock was I didn't know what was going on I was I was I was down on the bench and I was begging them to keep the wall in play I thought at one point Hugo was going to kick it went off and then Mark Anthony started playing as an under-12 kid, which was great and then there was a boat at the top of thinking, why would we chip that? and then Bundy got it back and then it was a great way to end the game for Chrome more than anything because I think having a good start is very important for us for the people, not just for the people who are traveling today and for Bordeaux having a great time , but also by For the general Irish public, I am told that sixty thousand and sixty thousand Irish households have registered for rugby for tickets and you do the math, whether it is two, three or four per household and you know the people who come from the United Kingdom.

America or Europe, wow, what a trip it will be, you know, so I'm happier for them, I hope they enjoyed it and the people who will come in the next few weeks will enjoy it. themselves a little bit more, so I hope the journey has just begun and it's going to get a little better too, so I'll wait for the translation, okay, yes, please, and you have that intention of having done it before, like you. You could have easily kicked the ball and taken what you had, but what does it say about the mentality of the team that you don't want to move on, that you want to get a 12th try and build like that?

They understand it right from the beginning. From the beginning, you know it by the way they preferred the property they had during the week in terms of points. We don't know what different ramifications will happen in two, three, four or four weeks. It's important that we get off to a good start and collect some points and that was the goal, but to do that you have to stick to the process and I thought we did pretty well, and we got a fair reward at the end, one more here, just ask quickly about Robbie and I knew everyone else might be fine oh no he's fine he felt a little bit of something in his hamstring um uh yesterday on the Captain's it wasn't worth it. risk at all so it'll be fine just go to the back and then everyone else did pretty well so a good day everyone Andy how do you solve the communication problem particularly when you say when you had jumps line?

In fact, fix that at halftime just making sure because sometimes you know when you're, you're running a support line and sometimes I feel like people get a little desperate, you know, and sometimes some of these. Communication is a little more overwhelming than the person who is actually with you, so make sure you realize that there is someone else in a better position than you. That's what being a good teammate is all about and you know we have to be fair. We're very good at that um and we certainly weren't the second half of Christian here and then two in the middle afterwards yeah please hi Johnny um can you expand a little bit on what you mentioned about the conditions?

They were difficult, not only because it was your first game in a long time, but overall they were some of the worst, almost difficult, I regret having played it, yes, I think among a group we were talking about it after we didn't. I don't think we're ever going to use that as an excuse because it's the same for both teams, but yeah, they were incredibly tough in warming up, you know, the storm of lives is that it felt like they were. I was burning, but luckily we had a couple of water breaks and, you know, we had time to regroup and I thought we got better as the game went on, which is the nicest thing from a fitness standpoint in the second half. half. we found our flow to be a little bit better so yes please on that front just wait for the translation and yes my question in French for Johnny the translation if you need it.

Yes, wait a minute. Stephanie Evans. Difficulty, please, yes, for the beginning. in the kicking game you had a hard time in the kicking game kick for golf kick for goal oh no, no goal, you know, um, yeah, I definitely didn't. I dropped a couple of kickoffs terribly, um, which was clear, um or the other kick, no, I think. You mean the intent of the kick, I'm not sure personally, that's the team, not you, oh okay, yeah, yeah, there were a few times where I felt like we could have kept the ball in hand, sure, yeah, but we'll have to have a Looking back, I think the guys worked incredibly hard, the back three guys in terms of their kicking.

I thought they kicked a couple grand. I thought we had about 50 20 in the second half and then, yeah, it's something. We have to be incredibly good in the rest of the tournaments. You know, you saw the

match

last night in France, New Zealand and the amount of tennis there was. You know you have to win those battles and I think we lost a couple of them tonight today, but we'll keep working hard and hopefully we'll be better Andy, what did you do with France, New Zealand? I thought it was a great game. I mean you guys, I would have thought you would think that.

You know, there are some bugs, some bugs within the game that made the game stop a little bit, but the humidity and this is what people don't understand, they should understand, you know when, when you're playing in a World Cup. It's a new tournament. You get new balls and there's a movie about these new balls and you know it's pretty hard to handle them in good condition, just normal conditions. But when you play new medicine like that, it's at nine. o'clock at night, um, there will be some errors. You saw people spilling the ball, who normally don't spill the ball on contact, they just explode and when you think about it that way and you look at them playing at the end. night and I was playing 35 degrees there, you can appreciate the kind of handling we showed on that second Earth Johnny, how much better do you feel now that you have 65 minutes under your belt and what was it like to be back? because I imagine you've been thinking about this moment for a really long time, yeah, six months, uh, thinking about it, um, obviously, some of that was self-inflicted by my mistake, um, but like once, once the plan was clear to me and and he said, look, just go to Target in that first game, we were able to train hard to do some prep work for this particular game, but, yeah, I hope I'm better, I hope I can improve my performance during Tonga and like I said, it's going to be a much tougher game and obviously they're a different caliber, player no disrespect to many, I thought they coped, you know, brilliantly, and they're very physical, but you know, we see.

The team that Tonga has and we know the threat they will have had this weekend off and will be prepared for our game. They will have two or three weeks just focused on our game. I think they have done it. I've said it publicly, so it's going to be a big challenge for us and we have to be ready. The World Cup is week after week and you know we have to be ready every week. I am extremely motivated at the moment, like everyone, what you do is for abroad. He looked powerful on the line and didn't give up his legs on contact.

He always seemed like he could get a few extra yards for us. I made some good ones. good decisions in attack and it looked like he was on it and uh ordered a few more actually um who certainly also some good performances coming off the bench, which was great. I thought the pace we showed coming off the bench was very telling for the latter part of the game, so there are some very good performances today and some guys who obviously did well, that's it, the first game was already underway and we will grow as individuals and as a team too, it's time for a couple more questions here in the middle please, now after the first try, I think it was just an accident.

I just got a stamp on the career stamp but I'm already pretty scared like when you play rugby you have to be prepared to get injured like you know it's a tough game it's physical and if it happens it happens you know I can't go to the games worrying about nothing, I really just have to go home and play and hope that your your body holds up we have in the back thanks and then the last one in the front here sorry Andy a couple of lines got lost I think it was The first one that was stolen there was an overthrow is this something that you are working on more than normal, is there something that still worries you?

I know we've talked first about everyone who is involved on the line, they work extremely hard, one or two calls that we would like to have a look at ourselves and want to overthrow, in our opinion, something that will certainly keep the mind focused is obviously a highly contested part of the game and a very specialized part of the game, it's something we work very hard on and support the staff. um uh very highly to make sure that we continue to the high standards that we've always had. I mean, our high scores are world class and will continue to be world class throughout this tournament.

I think your last question here up front and can you get your evaluation of Johnny's performance? It doesn't look like he wants to be arrested next week. Looks like you could do it again. No, I mean, I heard I broke some records today, so what were the records? Johnny, the oldest. player did I ever talk about the last question, yeah, yeah, that's the first one and then the other one was what was the point that he got. 24 points scored equal and you know he's eight points behind the record for um you know best the highest score for any Irish player so you think if he was selected he could get that record but the most enjoyable part of the game for we definitely had 60-odd minutes under the belt and shoot the seven is fit, healthy and ready to go for the rest of the competition thank you very much that brings the press conference from the end of the island thanks Andy thanks Johnny the zone mix will be open very soon right next door thank you all very much