Ireland 82-8 Romania: Andy Farrell and Johnny Sexton press conference

congratulations guys, great performance Johnny, how was it dating again after six months? Yes, she did pretty well. Yes, it's much darker. I am delighted to return. I didn't expect the conditions to be like this. It was incredibly hot. in the warm-up in particular and we look happy to spend a few minutes, we showed some good things, um, a lot to talk about, you know, there is a lot to improve on the individual front and as a team, we know that too. Next week's challenge will be to go up a couple of levels, so we have to be better again, so look, we are very, very happy with five points and also a good points difference, which you might care about, Andy , as I would do it? you sum up the Mormons well, I guess in sight we always look at it before and after the game we would be happy with the score and of course with what you know, I actually thought at half time with a few things.

To resolve it, um uh, I thought we had stopped the pitch of our game, um quite a bit regarding some areas of our game, maybe discipline or um, we got a little frantic with our communications, certainly after the line breaks, if you pass on the court, etc. It is a thought for rest. We were very calm. I thought we showed our intent about coming together as a team. How in sync we were with the ball in hand. Our fitness was excellent and our skill level was also quite good. I'm really delighted with how we played, certainly in the second half, certainly not in the first two minutes, so one back, yeah, hey, Johnny, what was your mentality going into the game?

Obviously, you've done this many times upon returning. 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

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? You have to go and prove it like It doesn't matter if you've trained hard or you know when it comes to the game it's different, the

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ure is different, the intensity is different, so I definitely, definitely needed a game and try it, happy with some things and not . I'm really happy with a couple of other things, so, uh, after every game, I don't think you've ever played a game where you're 100% happy, so, yeah, we'll go and review the game.

Individually and as a team, we enjoyed ourselves tonight and we enjoyed watching the other games and spending 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, the most pleasant one where the clock didn't know what was happening he was he was he was dead on the bench and I was begging them to keep the ball in play I thought at one point that Hugo was going to kick and then my advice I started to playing as a kid under 12 which was cool and then there was a ship on 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 the Chrome More than anything because I think getting off to a good start is very important to us for the people, not just for the people who travel today and have a great time in Bordeaux, but for the Irish public in general. um I'm told that sixty thousand sixty thousand Irish households have signed up for rugby for tickets and you do the math whether it's two, three or four per household and you know the people who come from the UK, America or Europe, wow, what a trip it will be, you know, so I'm happier for them.

I hope you had fun and that the people who will come in the next few weeks have some fun. What's more, I hope the journey has just begun and is 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 can kick the ball easily. and you took what you had, but what does it say about the mentality of the team? That you don't want to move forward. That you want to get a 12th attempt and build well. They understand right from the beginning.

We know from the way they have prepared the property they have had during the week about the points that matter. We don't know what different ramifications will happen in two, three, four, four weeks. It's important that we got off to a good start and collected some points and that was the goal, but to achieve that you have to stick to the process and I thought we did pretty well, and in the end we just have rewards. one more here just quickly ask about Robbie and I knew everyone else turned out 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 the risk on absolute, so he is he.

He'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 especially when you say when there were line breaks? How do you solve that at halftime? 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 someone's communication is a little bit more overwhelming than the person. that's really up to you, so make sure you realize that there's someone else in a better position than you, that's what being a good teammate is all about and to be fair, we're pretty good at that, um, and it certainly wasn't the second half mister Christian here and then two in the middle after this spot, hi Johnny, can you expand a little bit on what you mentioned about the conditions, how difficult they were, not just because it was your first game in a while, but overall they are some of the worst, it's almost difficult, I regret playing it, yes, I think among the group we were talking about it afterwards, no, I don't think we will ever use it. as an excuse because it's the same for both teams, but, yeah, they were incredibly tough, warming up, you know, the storm of lives felt like they were on fire, but luckily we had a couple of water breaks and uh, You know, I had time to regroup and I thought we got better as the game went on, which is the nicest thing from a fitness point of view, you know, in the second half we found our flow was a little bit better, so yes please. front just wait for the translation and yes, I asked my question in French for Johnny's translation, if you need it, yes, it's fluent, wait a minute, I definitely haven't.

It seems like you will have some problems in the future and why did you have? problems why did you have problems in this area for kickoffs or was it in the kicking game that you are seeing difficulty in the kicking game kicking for golf oh no, no goal um yeah, definitely not, I missed a couple of kickoffs output terribly um which was clear um or the other kick no, I think you meant that the content is not true personally, that's uh, your team, not you, oh, okay, um, yeah, there were a few times I felt that we could have kept the ball in our hand, um, sure, um.

Yes, but we will have to look back. I think the guys work incredibly hard on the back tree. Guys in terms of their kicks. I thought they kicked a couple grand. I thought we had about 50 20s in it. in the second half and then, um, yeah, something would have to be incredibly good for the rest of the tournaments, you know, you saw the match last night in France, New Zealand and the amount of kick tennis there was, you know you have to do it . I won 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, did you? I would have thought you would think you know there are some bugs some bugs within the game that made it slow down a little bit but the humidity and this is what people don't understand and 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 quite difficult to handle them in good conditions, just in normal conditions, but when you play a new medicine like that and that it's at nine o'clock at night um there's going to be some mistakes you saw people spilling the ball that normally don't spill the ball on contact they just explode and when you think about it like That and if you watch them play last night and I was shooting 35 degrees there, you can appreciate the kind of drive we showed in that second half, Johnny, how much better do you feel now that you have 65 minutes? your legs and what it was like to be back there because I imagine you've been thinking about this moment for a really long time, yeah, six months, uh, thinking about it, obviously, before that, it was a self-inflicted mistake, um, but like De Every once in a while the plan was clear to me and Andy told me look just go to Target, in that first game we were able to train hard to do a little bit of prep work for this particular game, but yeah, I hope I'm better for it.

I hope I can. improve my performance with Tonga and, as I said, it will be a much more difficult game and obviously they are different caliber players and without disrespect to many, I thought they faced off, you know, brilliantly, and they were very physical and, you know, We see the team that Tonga has and we know the threat that they will have had this weekend off and they will be prepared for our game if they will have two or three weeks just focused on our game, I think they have said it publicly, so it will 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, Andy. um Bundy seems extremely motivated right now as everyone is what the team does. I thought she was outstanding today um I said, I told him the same thing after again um he uh looked powerful on the line and um didn't give his legs apart on contact, he always looked like he could get a few extra yards for us and I took some good good ones. decisions in attack and it looked like he was on it and started some more actually, who, certainly, some good performances, I'm coming. from the bench too, 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's something about some really good performances today and some guys, they're obviously going well, that's it, the first game's over, we're off and running and We will grow as individuals and as a team too. It's time for a couple more questions here in the middle, please wait, team below. Not next week, after the first try, I think it was just an accident. I just had a seal put on my wrist, but I'm scared enough, like when you play rugby, you have to be prepared to get injured, like you know it's hard.

The game is physical, um, and if it happens, it happens, you know, I can't go into games worrying about anything. Radius, I have to go home and play and hope your body holds up and then the last one in the front, yeah, sorry, Andy, a couple of lines it was. down the wrong path I think it was the first one that was stolen there was an overthrow is there's something you're working on more than normal there's something you're still worried about I know we've talked about um everyone that's involved in the lineups working extremely hard um one or two um calls that would want to take a look at ourselves and want to overthrow in our opinion something that will certainly continue to focus the mind is obviously a very controversial part of the game and the very specialized part of the game is something that we work very hard on with me, behind the staff, very highly to ensure that we continue with the high standards that we have always had, I mean our too high grade.

This is world class and will continue to be world class throughout this tournament and your last question here up front and you can get your assessment of Johnny's performance. It doesn't look like he wants to be arrested next week. It looks like he might go. Again, no, I mean, I heard I broke some records today, so what were the records? Johnny, the oldest player, yeah, yeah, that's the first one and then the other one was what point he scored 24 even points and you know he's eight points behind. the record for um you know the most, the most points for any Irish player so you think if you get selected you could get that record, but the most enjoyable point of the part of the game for us was definitely 60 something. minutes under his belt and shooting at seven he is fit, healthy and ready for the rest of the competition.