Spirit lifts Horan

Ireland prop Marcus Horan believes his side can take comfort from the spirit shown during Saturday’s 30-14 defeat by Australia.

Eddie O’Sullivan’s men were left with a feeling of missed opportunity after they out-fought the visitors in the first half at Lansdowne Road only to be punished for their defensive lapses after the interval.

All three Australian tries could have been prevented had Ireland been a little more ruthless in the tackle and the knowledge this was no vintage Wallabies outfit just rubbed salt into the wound.

But while Ireland were left to reflect on the shortcomings which sent them spinning to their second emphatic defeat in eight days, Horan felt their commitment was worthy of praise.

“Both teams were badly hurt from previous results so nobody was going to back down. The Aussies were a wounded animal and came out fighting,” said the Munster tighthead.

“It was the same with us – we fought right until the end. We made a lot of work for us to get back into the game but the fighting is there so it is not all doom and gloom.

“We put some good passages of play together and we showed heart. You need a bit of luck and the rub of the green sometimes.”

Horan felt Ireland may have got it wrong tactically, stressing the potential returns to be had from turning the match into a forward battle after frequently exposing Australia up front.

“The ball did not break our way in certain aspects and when you get up from a ruck or a maul and see Australia scoring a breakaway try it can be pretty demoralising,” he said.

“There were aspects that could have been better from our point of view. The game plan was to try to take the ball wide and then go up the middle.

“There were few opportunities to do that. Maybe we just needed to take them on in the forwards as we probably did not get enough ball in hand to have a go at them.”

Ireland led 6-3 at half-time courtesy of two penalties from Ronan O’Gara but then Australia, assisted by some lame home tackling, pounced with a brace of tries from winger Drew Mitchell and one from full-back Chris Latham.

Leinster winger Shane Horgan crossed with four minutes left but by that time the Wallabies were out of sight and captain Simon Easterby was left to rue the costly error count.

“The 14 of us who played against New Zealand last week realised we had a second chance and were desperate to get back on the horse,” he said.

“We were pleased with our first-half performance. Maybe Australia are not quite as good as New Zealand at the moment but the intensity was just as high.

“We came through the first half very well, but were disappointed in the second half. We made similar mistakes in defence to last weekend, letting in a couple of soft tries.

“Like the New Zealand game that cost us the result. Going in at half-time we felt we could dominate and unfortunately the first 10 minutes killed us off a bit.

“We are learning harsh lessons from making silly errors. It was a huge improvement on the All Blacks performance, so we are pleased with that. We just need to be more composed.”