New Zealand captain Scott Barrett accused Joe McCarthy of a “below the line” shot on Damian McKenzie throughout Friday’s victory over Eire.
Simmering tensions threatened to boil over within the thirteenth minute throughout a scuffle involving Barrett and his reverse quantity McCarthy, who Barrett felt had intentionally focused All Blacks fly-half Damian McKenzie following a ruck.
McKenzie shook off the early consideration to kick 18 factors as New Zealand ran out convincing 23-13 victors to finish Eire’s 19-game successful streak on the Aviva Stadium.
“I don’t usually take exception but I saw something that was, I guess, below the line for me,” mentioned Barrett, whose facet constructed on final weekend’s 24-22 win over England at Twickenham to knock Eire off the highest of the world rankings.
“I suppose you needed to make some extent, ‘you are not concentrating on our 10 tonight’. It appeared like Damian was on the bottom and Joe cleaned him up.
“From where I saw it it looked like it was around his head. It looked like a bit of a shoulder to a man on the ground.”
Eire went into their autumn opener as favourites earlier than crashing to a primary house loss since France gained at an empty Aviva Stadium in the course of the 2021 Six Nations.
Will Jordan’s thirty seventh attempt in 39 Checks sealed a deserved success for the All Blacks, including to McKenzie’s six penalties.
Farrell: Eire gamers ‘gutted’ after uncommon house loss
A dejected James Lowe after the ultimate whistle
Eire, who have been crushed by New Zealand within the quarter-finals of final 12 months’s Rugby World Cup, conceded 13 penalties throughout the course of a stop-start affair and have been unable to construct on a 13-9 lead following Josh van der Flier’s rating early within the second half.
Eire head coach Andy Farrell mentioned: “[I’m] disappointed. It’s easily summed up with the mood of the dressing room, really: it’s pretty sombre.
“The lads are gutted, we’re all gutted together. I thought we prepped well, trained well, I thought we were excited about the game and we were.
“We did not handle to place our recreation out on the sector. Clearly the opposition have a giant say in that however I assumed we compounded too many errors and virtually suppressed ourselves a bit of bit at occasions.
“The accuracy wasn’t what was needed to win a big Test match like that.”
Josh van der Flier’s attempt minutes after the restart put Eire again in entrance however they failed to attain once more
Eire had a person benefit when Van der Flier plundered the sport’s opening attempt within the forty third minute resulting from Jordie Barrett being sin-binned for a excessive sort out on Garry Ringrose simply earlier than the break.
Nonetheless, repeated infringements sucked life out of the capability crowd and decisively swung the encounter again in New Zealand’s favour.
Defeat for Eire was solely a second on house soil in the course of the Farrell period.
“It’s a funny old feeling because we don’t tend to have it too much in that dressing room,” mentioned Farrell.
“That’s life, congratulations to New Zealand. There’s no excuses for us. The opposition, long story short, deserved to win. I actually thought the game was stop-start, it was a bit scrappy.
“There have been quite a lot of errors, due to the climate a bit of bit. It was a sluggish sufficient recreation at occasions and we wanted to be in command of taking care of our power and we did not do this nicely sufficient.”
Eire’s Autumn Nations Collection fixtures
Nov 8: Eire 13-23 New Zealand
Nov 15: Eire vs Argentina (8.10pm)
Nov 23: Eire vs Fiji (3.10pm)
Nov 30: Eire vs Australia (3.10pm)
