{"id":310863,"date":"2026-02-22T03:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/310863\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T03:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:33:16","slug":"i-hope-everyone-at-home-is-just-as-proud-as-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/310863\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I hope everyone at home is just as proud as well\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In some respects the party was only beginning but even within an hour of the game, and even by the standards of his high achieving seven-season tenure, Ireland<\/a> head coach Andy Farrell<\/a> admitted that the record-breaking 42-21 away win over England<\/a> amounted to \u201ca special day\u201d.<\/p>\n

Outside, tens of thousands clad in green among the 81,953 were in high spirits and after a visit to the away dressingroom Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, Farrell admitted he didn\u2019t know exactly where this victory ranked in his time as Ireland head coach.<\/p>\n

But he has rarely looked or sounded prouder after such a commanding 80-minute display by a team whose performance levels had been questioned in the loss to France and win over Italy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I suppose we\u2019ll have a good think about that whilst we\u2019re reminiscing later on this evening. But it\u2019s a special day, to come here and perform like that. We\u2019d obviously be delighted with that,\u201d said Farrell.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut even more so than that for us, I thought the respect that the lads show for one another out there on the field was immense. The respect that they show for the jersey and what it meant to them and the respect for the Irish people really. To learn some lessons and grow as a group, as a team, was the overriding feeling for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

What made Farrell additionally proud was that his team delivered such a commanding display in front of an estimated 15-20,000 Irish supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, it does. We just had the Taoiseach in the changing rooms there. We spoke as a group after that as well. It is special. It is special.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I said it to the lads, I didn\u2019t care whether we won or lost today, just whether we grew as a group because we know where we want to go to. And it just so happens that to the people of Ireland winning does matter and it brings a bit of joy on everyone\u2019s face. So, for them, I mean the crowd, the people that turned up, it was immense. I hope everyone at home is just as proud as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ireland'sIreland’s head coach Andy Farrell leaves the field after the match. Photograph: Ben Brady\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Farrell singled out individuals more than he usually does, albeit it was hard to know where to stop given so many played exceptionally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he [Caelan Doris] had his best game in a good while,\u201d said Farrell when nodding to the captain beside him, who made 20 tackles as well as 11 carries for 49 metres.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was immense in his carry. That\u2019s Caelan at his best. How he led from the front and got us over the gainline was outstanding, but we could 100 per cent have two minutes on every single person out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cJamison [Gibson-Park], Stu McCloskey, Josh [van der Flier], Tadhg Beirne, Joe [McCarthy], it\u2019d be cruel to leave people out<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the growth in the team is there with the likes of Rob Baloucoune and Stu McCloskey dominating at this type of level in such a big game like that; Cian Prendergast coming on and showing that he belongs at this level; Nick Timoney coming on and doing exactly the same. The respect that they have now got from their peers is pretty solid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farrell was asked specifically about Jack Crowley\u2019s performance, after the outhalf worked seamlessly in tandem with Gibson-Park \u2013 given a standing ovation by the Irish in the crowd and a nailed-on man-of-the-match \u2013 and landed seven from nine for a 17-point haul.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he was one of many who was very impressive in how they got over themselves. We felt there was a bit of heavy legs or whatever, getting the feedback from the Paris game and that\u2019s all because we\u2019re not fully in and fully committed and going for the game and being free in your own mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done a bit of work over the last couple of weeks to do that. We had a good discussion on Wednesday there where everyone to a man being honest with how they\u2019re going to attack the game and they stood true to their word.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ireland'sIreland’s Caelan Doris is tackled by England’s Alex Coles tackles. Photograph: Inpho <\/p>\n

England had responded to a third-round loss in Murrayfield two years ago by beating Ireland 23-22 next time out and Farrell referenced that painful defeat which effectively denied a historic repeat Grand Slam.<\/p>\n

\u2018We got told we needed to dampen them down and rightly so because we were here two years ago when England lost to Scotland and they played outstandingly well and played some outstanding rugby on that day as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there\u2019s a lesson to be learned there for us, but more so the lesson from Paris and us growing as a group is the key,\u201d he added with regard to the 36-14 defeat on opening night in the Stade de France.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about doing the things that you promised each other that you were going to do and be free, get out of your own way and just let go and play the game that\u2019s in front of you and have no distractions. We did that and what that accumulated to was some fantastic rugby in broken field stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got them on the break, made line breaks from deep in our own half and ground it out as well on their line,\u201d said Farrell, who singled out McCloskey chasing back Marcus Smith in the 73rd minute, which had the Irish coach jumping up from his seat and punching the air at the time.<\/p>\n

If it doesn\u2019t break you it can make goes the saying, and evidently that disappointing opening night against France at least in part fuelled this display, admitted Doris.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to you guys yesterday about Paris being a reference point where hopefully we\u2019ll see a pretty steep incline in performances. I think this will now be a reference point that we look back on as a proper good performance that\u2019s given us a lot of belief,\u201d said Doris.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve also mentioned to you guys that at the core of what we\u2019re doing in training, in camp, there has been belief still, and I think you saw some of that through how we played today.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, it was just an unbelievable atmosphere out there. You talk about inspiring the nation and getting the Irish people behind us and hopefully that brought both the people here and at home a bit of joy today. We definitely enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In some respects the party was only beginning but even within an hour of the game, and even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[59241,61,60,1449,43,15551],"class_list":{"0":"post-310863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-england-rugby","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-ireland-rugby","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-six-nations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310863","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=310863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}