With world champions South Africa next on the agenda, Ireland’s Tommy O’Brien feels they must improve on the “clunky” win over Fiji on Saturday.
O’Brien crossed for two of his side’s seven tries in the 43-15 win which moves Andy Farrell’s side to within one point of France in the Northern hemisphere standings of the Nations Championship before next week’s final round of games.
It was far from a vintage Irish performance with a number of errors halting their momentum, but they did manage to pull away in the second period.
Speaking to The Ireland Rugby Social podcast after the game, O’Brien acknowledged Ireland “made very hard work” of thie win and must lift it before taking on a Springboks side that will be smarting from Friday’s defeat by France.
“It was just clunky – a few handling errors, discipline killed us a bit as it stopped the flow of our game,” the 28-year-old Leinster back said.
“We felt really good about where our game is but it just didn’t happen for us there. Andy challenged us, saying it’s never going to go all our own way, so he challenged us at half-time to make it right.
“We are under no illusions that we need to get a lot beter for where we’re talking about going in 12 months’ time with the World Cup.
“We will be reviewing that hard and I’m sure it’s not going to be amazing viewing in parts, but we’ll take the learning into next week. We’re going to have to up our game massively.”
Source: www.bbc.com
