Andy Farrell says Ireland must remedy the psychological shortcomings which caused them to become “desperate” during a disheartening Dublin defeat to New Zealand.
The Six Nations champions slipped to a disappointing 23-13 loss in their Autumn Nations Series opener after being punished for a raft of errors and repeated infringements.
An inquest into Friday evening’s underwhelming display at an expectant Aviva Stadium is set to begin when players return to camp on Sunday.
Head coach Farrell admits there is significant room for improvement ahead of upcoming appointments with Argentina, Fiji and Australia.
Ireland’s 19-game winning streak at the Aviva Stadium was ended by New Zealand
“It’s not right to try and be desperate, chasing your tail, when you’ve made an error, whether it be a penalty or a dropped ball, and compound that error with another error and all of a sudden field position is gone and points come off the back of that,” said Farrell.
“We did that a number of times. We need to fix up our mentality as far as that’s concerned, getting back to neutral and getting the ball back in the way that we want it.
“We became a little bit too desperate and, on the back of that, the energy wasn’t what was needed, or the accuracy.”
Ireland must regroup ahead of Argentina’s visit to Dublin on Friday
New Zealand’s deserved victory, secured by six Damian McKenzie penalties and a Will Jordan try, halted Ireland’s winning run on home soil at 19 matches.
It also inflicted further misery on the hosts following the All Blacks’ 28-24 triumph in the quarter-finals of last year’s World Cup in France.
“We move on,” said Farrell. “We have to.
“We have to find the solutions as soon as we possibly can because we’ve got a hungry side in Argentina [on Friday] who are playing some really good rugby at this moment in time.
“We need to get back on the horse and start it all over again, don’t we?”
Josh van der Flier scored Ireland’s only try on a frustrating night against New Zealand
With New Zealand centre Jordie Barrett in the sin bin following a high tackle on Garry Ringrose, Josh van der Flier’s try briefly threatened to turn a scrappy contest in Ireland’s favour.
But Farrell’s men paid a heavy price for committing 21 handling errors, conceding 13 penalties and missing 30 tackles, in addition to repeatedly being second best at turnovers, rucks and lineouts.
“We’ll get a few answers in regard to clarification over a few of them but it doesn’t really matter whether it was wrong or right,” Farrell said of the high penalty count.
“We still should have suppressed ourselves a little bit.”
New Zealand’s victory built on last weekend’s 24-22 win over England at Twickenham.
Following the success, Kiwi centre Rieko Ioane opted to stir the pot in his simmering feud with former Ireland captain Johnny Sexton.
The pair clashed after the All Blacks’ World Cup win in Paris, with Sexton subsequently detailing the exchange in his recently-released autobiography.
“Put that in the book,” Ioane posted on Instagram, alongside pictures of him leading the Haka.