Ireland to 'get back on the horse' for Pumas after All Black defeat says Finlay Bealham

BACK ON THE HORSE: Finlay Bealham after Irealnd's defeat to New Zealand. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Finlay Bealham wasn’t in the most expressive of moods as Friday night bled into Saturday morning.

No surprise.

The Connacht prop had played 42 times for Ireland before this defeat to New Zealand and his longest shift in all that time had been just over an hour when he started in place of an injured Tadhg Furlong away to France in the Six Nations two years ago.

Bealham played 78 minutes this time. He was hardly off the park in the second-half when his replacement Tom O’Toole took a blow, got back to his feet and stumbled for 20 yards across the Aviva turf before returning to the floor.

That was his night over less than two minutes in. Bealham was quickly back up, gulping down a quick slug of water on the sideline and returning to the field for an end game that would see the contest slip away for a first home loss in 20 games.

Big ask for a tighthead prop in a game loaded with scrums.

“It was a tough, tough game physically. I was blowing a bit at the end but it was tough.”

The All Blacks have now claimed back-to-back wins in London and in Dublin on this tour. England let their win slip, Ireland stayed in the fight but couldn’t in a million years have any issues with the result after a sloppy 80 minutes.

“They're right up there,” said Bealham.

“They're a world-class team with some unbelievable individuals. Every time you play them you know it's going to be an absolute war, and today was a war again. They were the better team on the night.”

 

Andy Farrell’s Ireland have made it a mantra to revel in chaos. Curveballs have been relished rather than feared but so many of the problems coming their way against the Kiwis emanated from their own errors.

They gave away 13 penalties, made 21 handling errors, lost five rucks and three lineouts. Their tackle success rate was only 77% and they had to make a lot of tackles on the night. New Zealand made nine clean line breaks, Ireland managed one.

Bealham landed on discipline, ruck pressure and the tackle as two areas where they fell short but it was just over an hour after the game and the details were still being lost in the miasma of the general disappointment on the night.

It made for a deeply unfulfilling start to a four-game Test window. This was the pick of the bunch. The cold hard truth is that the three to follow were always going to feel a tad underwhelming next to it.

Ireland’s task now is to ensure the sense of shortfall doesn’t spread.

“Everyone is obviously bitterly disappointed. Look, there's still three games to go in this series and we'll dust ourselves off. We're not feeling sorry for ourselves. We'll analyse it properly and another big Test next week. Back on the horse.”