{"id":711455,"date":"2026-07-26T04:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T04:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/711455\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T04:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T04:03:14","slug":"matt-williams-ireland-were-class-below-in-july-as-andy-farrells-team-avoided-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/711455\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Williams: Ireland were ‘class below’ in July as Andy Farrell’s team avoided ‘disaster’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Scotland<\/a> head coach Matt Williams has slammed Ireland\u2019s Nations Championship performances as Andy Farrell\u2019s men were \u2018publicly examined and exposed\u2019 at Eden Park.<\/p>\n

Ireland won two of their three matches in July, defeating Australia and Japan before falling to a defeat at the hands of the All Blacks in Auckland in their last fixture.<\/p>\n

While many have argued that the 40-21 result could have been different had Quinn Tupaea been yellow-carded for his deliberate knock-on and Luke Jacobson had his sin-binning upgraded to a 20-minute red, Williams is not buying any of the excuses and believes that the side was completely outplayed by Dave Rennie\u2019s charges.<\/p>\n

All Blacks outclassed Andy Farrell\u2019s men<\/p>\n

That completed the hat-trick of \u2018highly inaccurate\u2019 performances from the men in green, according to the ex-Leinster boss who stuck to form and did not hold back in his assessment of Ireland\u2019s July<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisregard the flimsy excuses doing the rounds. Ireland<\/a> were well and truly beaten by a superior and powerfully focused New Zealand,\u201d Williams<\/a> wrote in the Irish Times before diving into the statistics of the match.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cIreland turned over possession a staggering 18 times. Meaning that against one of the best attacking systems in the world, Ireland gave them 18 extra possessions. Decisively, Ireland then missed a whopping 35 tackles. It is impossible to defeat any tier-one nation, let alone New Zealand at Eden Park, with those stats.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgainst both Australia and New Zealand, Ireland\u2019s defensive intensity was well below elite standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian O\u2019Driscoll: Jack Crowley still Ireland\u2019s 10 after Sam Prendergast\u2019s \u2018mixed bag\u2019 as no one\u2019s stock \u2018necessarily went up\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

State of the Nation: \u2018Clock turns back\u2019 to last November for Andy Farrell as \u2018cosiness\u2019 of the Ireland set-up leads to \u2018sobering conclusion\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s long run of below-par performances<\/p>\n

Williams pinned the defeat on the plethora of errors that the Irish made, including Stuart McCloskey\u2019s pass to no one that was ultimately scooped up by Will Jordan who scored. However, those mistakes weren\u2019t limited to that evening at Eden Park as Ireland were similarly wasteful against Australia but still emerged 33-31 victors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn big matches, the team that make the least mistakes win. Ireland\u2019s mountain of errors and missed tackles allowed the Kiwis to impose their game plan on Ireland. New Zealand applied huge pressure to Ireland and, to state a hard fact, the green team cracked,\u201d he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adding: \u201cIn the\u00a0Nations Championship, Ireland have put in three highly inaccurate performances. If the Wallabies kickers, Ben Donaldson and Carter Gordon, had landed any of their four missed attempts at goal in Sydney, then the last few weeks would have been an Irish disaster. Ireland did not win that test in Sydney, Australia lost it. In Tokyo, France showed how a top-class international team should demolish Japan. And in Auckland Ireland were a class below.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we look back on Ireland\u2019s 2025-26 season, the excellent performance at Twickenham in this year\u2019s Six Nations now appears to be the exception, in what has been a long run of below-par performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen analysing the season, we have to take into consideration that the Lions tour has taken a grave toll on the Irish players. While the past year has been exceedingly demanding, no matter the reasons, Ireland\u2019s performances have diminished.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Rating every Ireland player from the Nations Championship: Two standouts, including \u2018counter punching\u2019 forward, but too many \u2018missed opportunities\u2019 for Andy Farrell\u2019s side<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Scotland head coach Matt Williams has slammed Ireland\u2019s Nations Championship performances as Andy Farrell\u2019s men were \u2018publicly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[348,3482,2274,15733,134497,620,50,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-711455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-ireland","tag-matt-williams","tag-nations-championship","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}