Farrell: 'It's the only way that you move on, by addressing things'

OPEN AND HONEST DISCUSSIONS:  Ireland Rugby Head Coach, Andy Farrell with the Guinness Six Nations trophy at the launch of the 2024 Guinness Men’s Six Nations Championship at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. Pic: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland

Andy Farrell insisted he was over Ireland’s World Cup quarter-final exit and was determined to get his team “back on the horse” for the Guinness Six Nations opener against France in Marseille on Friday week.

The Ireland head coach was speaking at the Guinness Storehouse on Monday as the championship sponsors played host to the competition’s annual media day before heading to the IRFU High Performance Centre to meet with his squad.

It is the first time Farrell has had charge of his players since the 28-24 defeat to New Zealand in Paris last October 14 and he said his first collective interaction with a 34-player group captained by Peter O’Mahony would be to review Ireland’s World Cup exit before embarking on a week-long warm-weather training camp on Portugal’s Algarve starting on Wednesday.

“Yeah, first meeting this afternoon, where we’ll be open and honest,” Farrell said. “We are open and honest in the sense that any type of victory in the past you make sure you use every opportunity to grow and try to understand it together.

"It's the only way that you move on, by addressing things, and we'll certainly be doing that over the next couple of weeks.” 

Farrell recognises that the narrow defeat to the All Blacks, which ended a national men’s team record run of 17 consecutive Test victories, was a crushing blow to his players with new captain O’Mahony, appointed last week as successor to the now retired Johnny Sexton, admitting he contemplated retirement after the Stade de France loss and Andrew Porter having said he may never fully get over the blow.

The Ireland boss feels very differently, however.

"I'm over it. I don't buy into either, ‘is it bittersweet’, everything that went on as far as the feeling within the World Cup. I was unbelievably proud of how we connected with our fans and did it together.

"That, for me, continues by how we get back on the horse and I'm not saying that will translate to another big W in Marseille, I'm not saying that. We're talking about being proud about how we go about our business, to want to keep evolving our game.

"The journey continues. If you look at what we've got, first game in Marseille, unbelievable stadium, unbelievable atmosphere, a lot of the Irish who had flights for the (World Cup) semi-final, I heard a lot of them transferred it to Marseille so they're expecting a performance from us.

"We've got to stand up to responsibilities like that. Again, it doesn't guarantee us being successful.

"We've got to show fight and then the rest of the Six Nations is ahead of us. You look at what we've got after that, the trip to South Africa and two games against South Africa, it doesn't really get any better as an Irish management, as an Irish player or as an Irish fan.” 

Having attended Tuesday’s launch before meeting his squad, Farrell said he was not in a position to give a medical update on those injured during the final round of Champions Cup games over the weekend, although O’Mahony said he would be fit to face the French in the Velodrome in 11 days.

Farrell also explained why had chosen the 34-year-old Test centurion to lead Ireland, tying in with his belief that sticking to a four-year World Cup cycle can be counter-productive. The Ireland boss has no uncapped players in his squad while O’Mahony steps up from within the previous leadership group to succeed Sexton, with both he and predecessor Rory Best a similar age when appointed and actually leading their country into the next World Cup regardless, at the ages of 38 and 37 respectively.

“I’ve had plenty of experiences of that and not just the rugby scene but in general we learn in sport to completely cut the legs off something and starting again can damage not just the team but the individuals within that. So dealing with it here and now and the medium term is very important to be able to fix the long term in good shape, in my opinion. That’s my experience of it over the years.” 

Turning to his selection of O’Mahony, Farrell said: “Obviously, there were a few candidates because we’ve got some great leadership in the group and it continues to grow and Peter will be at the heart of that to help it do exactly that.

As far as natural fit and natural leaders and coming from what we’ve come from before with Johnny, he’s the type of leader that is exactly the same in the sense that he’s just being himself and being your natural self is what they call being authentic these days, isn't it, it’s very easy to follow.

“There are certain people that you walk into a room and they’re in the room and make the room feel right, it’s pretty important around the place, and certainly on match day that you have that type of person in the dressing room and Peter’s certainly one of those. So just being himself and helping others to grow. It’s going to be great for him and his family and I know he’ll do the country proud.”