Tadhg Beirne: Ireland have learned their lesson from demanding Andy Farrell

"'We're here to play, we go after teams, we have that mindset.' He has definitely instilled that in us and it was no different on the weekend."

LESSON LEARNED: Tadhg Beirne during an Ireland rugby media conference at Complexe de la Chambrerie in Tours, France. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

It was in November 2022 when Andy Farrell rued his team’s lack of ruthlessness but fast forward 10 months and Tadhg Beirne says Ireland have learned their lesson from their demanding head coach.

Playing 14-man Fiji at Aviva Stadium, Farrell was singularly unimpressed with Ireland’s 35-17 victory and a “pretty underwhelming” performance against a side which had been reduced to 13 men at one stage and received two yellow cards and a red.

And what really irked the Ireland boss was the decision to end the game with a kick to touch rather than trying to deliver a killer blow with one last assault on the opposition tryline.

“We should have been a lot more clinical than we were and I think that’s the moral of the story,” Farrell had said in his immediate post-match analysis.

“Our start wasn’t the best and fast forward to the last play of the game, us kicking the ball out against 14 men with a scrum ready to play when the game’s already won probably sums the game up.” 

Those words and the dressing down behind closed doors found their target, as Beirne tells the tale and was evident in Ireland’s brutal dismantling of Romania last Saturday in Bordeaux, inflicting a 12-try, 82-8 hammering on the Pool B minnows.

With a much tougher assignment in Nantes on Saturday against Tonga, few will be expecting a similar scoreline but the message to be ruthless and clinical still very much applies.

Beirne misremembered the opposition but he and his team-mates have not forgotten the lesson.

"It probably has been over the time Andy has been in charge, since he's been head coach,” the forward said yesterday.

“Was it Italy when they were down to 13 men and we kicked the ball off, and he wasn't happy with us. That's probably happened once or twice where he's very much like, 'We're here to play, we go after teams, we have that mindset.'

Beirne poses for a portrait after an Ireland rugby media conference at Complexe de la Chambrerie in Tours, France. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

“He has definitely instilled that in us and it was no different on the weekend. We wanted to keep the foot on the throttle from minute one until the end and get as much out of the game as we could.

“You're playing in a group where, hopefully it won't be the case for us at the end of it, but every point will matter in terms of bonus points or even points difference, I don't know.

"We went into that game, first and foremost, to win, but we wanted to put in a performance where once we got going, we didn't want to take the foot off the gas."

That intent was clear in a final quarter when, with the game over as a contest and the try bonus point in the bag, Ireland ran in a further four tries, Beirne finishing the 12th and final score on 82 minutes, running the length of the field and collecting the final pass along the way in 36C heat to apply the coup de grace.

"You could probably see from everyone's mindset on the field that we were probably going to have a crack from our own line,” Beirne said. “We felt we could score another try and everyone had that mindset of 'why not have a go?'

“That's why we ended up getting the try from our own line. All those moments from the last four years where we've had a lot of conversations in terms of mindset, especially with Gary (Keegan, Ireland performance coach) and with Faz and all the coaching staff, they've all probably played a massive part for those moments at the end of games and where our heads are at. It's probably why we feel we're in a good place at the moment."

The squad is due to arrive in Nantes this afternoon having made the 2.5 hour rail journey from their Loire Valley training base in Tours. There the head coach will name his team to face the Tongans.

Beirne has played in every game this summer, starting with a pre-season appearance off the bench against Italy on August 5 followed by starts against warm-up opponents England and Samoa and then a third 80-minute performance in succession in last Saturday’s Pool B opener against the Romanians. 

Despite his lung-busting, try-scoring turn in Bordeaux last Saturday afternoon, the back-five forward does not feel he is up to his highest levels of performance yet.

“Still getting there I think. I’ve been lucky enough, I played all three of the warm-up games and it definitely helped in terms of my game.

"I probably wasn’t anywhere near where I wanted to be for the first warm-up game and I’ve certainly felt like I’ve been building.”