Returning to Aviva Stadium for the first time since a comprehensive Six Nations defeat by France in March, Ireland did not initially get the response they hoped after last weekend’s loss at the hands of the All Blacks in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Head coach Farrell made eight changes to his starting side but, as has often been the theme for his rotated sides in past Novembers, there was a distinct lack of rhythm in attack.<\/p>\n
The early kick-off and a rare less-than-capacity crowd certainly gave a low-key feel but, after Japan dug themselves out of a 17-0 deficit to trail just 17-10 at half-time, there was no doubt Ireland were in a genuine battle. <\/p>\n
The visitors, who famously beat Ireland at their own World Cup in 2019, arrived in Dublin off the back of a 61-7 drubbing at the hands of South Africa in Wembley last week but this did not have the same one-sided feel until the closing minutes.<\/p>\n
Against New Zealand, Ireland’s set-piece struggled which in turn denied the side attacking opportunities through a game in which they managed just one try.<\/p>\n
That their first line-out of the day was overthrown and resulted in a turnover did not hint at much of an improvement.<\/p>\n
Even still, after the Irish pack made a considerably more encouraging start at the scrum, it was a surprise to see the hosts opt to kick for the posts after five minutes rather than trust their work out of touch to set up a maul.<\/p>\n
Japan had plenty of ball in the early stages – as evidenced by the necessity for O’Brien to make a pair of breakdown turnovers in the opening quarter of an hour – but their momentum was stalled by centre Charlie Lawrence’s yellow card for a dangerous tackle in the 17th minute. <\/p>\n
Tries through Crowley and Timoney either side of Lawrence’s return would have been expected to settle what had been a nervy beginning, but Ireland’s response to their 17-0 was a poor one.<\/p>\n
A misplayed restart and lack of discipline allowed Japan back into the game with a converted mauled score and penalty from Jones’ side ensuring the 17-10 scoreline at the turn was a much fairer reflection of proceedings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Returning to Aviva Stadium for the first time since a comprehensive Six Nations defeat by France in March,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-129036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}