{"id":259574,"date":"2025-11-03T11:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T11:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/259574\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T11:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T11:18:10","slug":"new-zealand-were-there-for-the-taking-ireland-made-them-look-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/259574\/","title":{"rendered":"‘New Zealand were there for the taking… Ireland made them look good’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rob Kearney pulled no punches in his assessment of Ireland\u2019s 26-13 defeat to New Zealand<\/a> in Chicago, saying Andy Farrell\u2019s side let a poor All Blacks<\/a> outfit off the hook after a strong start.<\/p>\n

Tadhg Beirne\u2019s early red card for a high tackle on Beauden Barrett<\/a> set the tone for a frustrating evening at Soldier Field, where Ireland\u2019s hopes of repeating their famous 2016 victory evaporated in the second half.<\/p>\n

Despite leading 13-7 through a Tadhg Furlong<\/a> try and eight points from Jack Crowley<\/a>, Ireland<\/a> lost their grip as New Zealand pulled away with tries from Ardie Savea<\/a>, Tamaiti Williams<\/a>, Wallace Sititi<\/a> and Cam Roigard.<\/p>\n

Kearney, analysing the performance on Virgin Media Sport, said Ireland\u2019s issues went deeper than Beirne\u2019s dismissal.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest disappointment with the result tonight is, well, within the performance of it,\u201d he said. \u201cTo beat the All Blacks you have to keep attacking them for 80 minutes. And, you know, we put some really good phases of play together in that first half and we had some opportunities from the 40 to 50 minute block, but after that we were just devoid of all ideas. We started handing cheap possession back to them, our kick chase wasn\u2019t as good, some sloppy penalties away, then you throw in a couple of lineouts not going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s structure and intensity fell apart after the hour mark, and Kearney suggested the team\u2019s mindset slipped at the key moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur whole game just began to unravel a little bit,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there\u2019s, OK, yeah, of course there\u2019s a little bit of match sharpness and fitness within that, but I think ultimately it\u2019s a mindset and it\u2019s back to where we were beforehand. It\u2019s what you would expect with the first game of the season a little bit too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former full-back said Ireland\u2019s failure to capitalise on New Zealand\u2019s errors was particularly frustrating.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Zealand were there for the taking tonight,\u201d Kearney said. \u201cThey did not play well today and we made them look good in the last 20 minutes. That\u2019s the bit that\u2019s going to really hurt this team and coaches tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Kearney pulled no punches in his assessment of Ireland\u2019s 26-13 defeat to New Zealand in Chicago, saying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-259574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}