O’Connell hails discipline, but bemoans missed tackles

Ireland captain Paul O’Connell admitted sorting out missed tackles will be one of their biggest priorities this week as they prepare for the second and concluding test against the Pumas in Tucuman on Saturday.

The Munster star said there were plenty of encouraging aspects to take from the game, especially in light of all the changes, but there’s also room for improvement.

This is O’Connell’s first time in Argentina where Ireland have floundered in all three prior meetings and the Irish captain felt the way they responded to the opening Puma try was key.

“It was great, Zeebs won the kick-off which was excellent, then we got a penalty two-three metres from the touchline and kicked it to the corner. Our set-piece had been good throughout the game. It was to get over the line for the try for what was an important five points after conceding. It was important for us and probably put us back on the right track.

“I think our set-piece was really good. We got a lot of good starter plays off our line-out, we turned over a few really crucial scrums as well which was good as they were massive pressure relievers.

“Our discipline was excellent. We took up where we left off in the Six Nations in terms of our discipline. I think we only conceded seven penalties, or something like that, which is great against Argentina .

“On the flipside, I think there were a lot of things we knew were going to happen and we didn’t deal with them how we would have wanted to.

“Certainly the way Argentina put pressure on you off (from) turnovers, they love hitting you off turnovers, and that bit of play when we nearly scored a try early in the first-half, was disallowed, they take a quick tap and they nearly score 30 seconds later, and that kind of thing is probably something we’ve spoken about every day since we came together, and that was frustrating for that to happen.”

Regarding the missed tackles, O’Connell said that aspect of their play would be top of the priority list this week as they aim to get their house in order for the second test.

“I’m disappointed and Les will be disappointed as well, with the missed tackles. I think they’ve a lot of very talented footballers. We missed tackles, tackles that I think we should have made, and it conceded momentum to Argentina.

Again, I think they’ve got super players with some super footwork, and we need to defend better if we’re going to put in a better performance against them next week.”

O’Connell said that several players made the most of the opportunity to claim further inclusion, with Simon Zebo doing his cause no harm as he donned the green shirt for the first time in a year.

“He’s a fantastic footballer. He’s an incredible athlete. I think anyone watching him play for Munster knows that. I suppose there are a lot of other things that Joe requires that people need to do as well. I think he looked really good, the offload for the try to (Darren) ‘Cavey’ is probably the easy part for Zeebs in many ways, it’s the few other things that Joe is really adamant about that he needs to work on.

“It’s hard to tell walking off the pitch but to me, every time he carried the ball and took it into contact he looked really good. He came back in a good body position and seemed to defend really well as well,” he added.