Beirne was initially yellow-carded by French referee Pierre Brousset after a marathon TMO check into how his shoulder had made contact with the head of All Black out-half Beauden Barrett just three minutes into Saturday afternoon\u2019s autumn opener in Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stadium screens didn\u2019t show replays and the officials had to make their way to a small sideline screen on halfway.<\/p>\n
The Munster captain was shown yellow but a bunker review upgraded it to red. The communication issues persisted with Farrell and the coaching team unable to hear any of the deliberations. The head coach shared his thoughts afterwards but did tread carefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know because I am all for the safest way possible for this game to move forward so you\u2019ve got to be careful what you say in that regard,\u201d Farrell said. \u201cTo me, if you look at it in real time, I don\u2019t know how he was transferred [from yellow to red]. They\u2019ve obviously got their reasons and I wasn\u2019t privy to that.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can look at it in all angles but the only way to look at it is in real time. To me it\u2019s a forward pass in the first place and how that influences your decision after that\u2026but it doesn\u2019t matter any more does it? We got a red card and we actually dealt with it pretty well to be fair. That doesn\u2019t make it any better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like his captain Dan Sheehan before him, Farrell wasn\u2019t of a mind to reach for what looked like a very harsh dismissal as mitigation for what followed as Tamaiti Williams, Wallace Sititi and Cam Roigard ran in three tries in the space of just 15 minutes as discipline and defensive structure evaded Ireland in crunch time.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously it\u2019s disappointing to lose any game. When you play a top tier side, a world class side like New Zealand, you always want to judge yourself against that opposition,\u201d added Farrell, whose men had established a 13-7 lead early in the second half thanks to a second penalty from Jack Crowley to go with Tadhg Furlong\u2019s early try, Ardie Savea grabbing New Zealand\u2019s only first-half score.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThen obviously the occasion and all that together, it hurts a little bit more. Understanding why that happened is key for us now. Addressing all of that and making sure we move forward very quickly for what is a pretty important autumn.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ireland\u2019s set-piece struggles reared their head again here as the lineout malfunctioned mightily and the scrum didn\u2019t provide much of a base either. While there was some delicious offloading and snappy play in the build-up to the Furlong try, that was the exception as Ireland went trough 80-plus minutes without a clean line-break for the first time in seven years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suppose you subconsciously suppress yourself a bit when things don\u2019t start going your way and I\u2019m talking two tries and the game going away from us that little bit,\u201d said Farrell. \u201cOne hundred per cent we were slower off the floor. I thought our fitness was pretty good. It\u2019s what we talked about before the game, mental switch-offs, mental sharpness, lapses of concentration for two or three seconds and you get hurt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Ireland](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4843920_3_articleinlinemobile_3275617.jpg\" "\\"Ireland")
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell. Pic: Ramsey Cardy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n
“We managed the red card and I thought the subs who were coming on with fresh legs, I didn\u2019t think it was a fitness problem. It was a sharpness to our game that was the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that we\u2019re aware of and it\u2019s something that over the course of a season to get better at. But if you want to win big games like this, on big occasions like here in Soldier Field, that\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take and we weren\u2019t good enough.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sheehan lamented the lineout issues which began as early as the second minute and rarely relented. Ryan Baird\u2019s prowess attacking the All Blacks lineout at least helped Ireland have some rare joy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought [New Zealand] did a great job at getting up early. It\u2019s frustrating for us,\u201d said Sheehan. \u201cIt\u2019s something we pride ourselves on is winning good ball so that we can launch our attacks on. Just didn\u2019t get into our flow today in a lot of times. It probably fed into the game in that we weren\u2019t able to stack momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely something we need to look at and try to find our flow again. But there\u2019s a good group there. The right people are there and we\u2019ll work the plan out now going into the next couple of weeks. We\u2019ll get it humming again but it just didn\u2019t click tonight.”<\/p>\n
With a transatlantic trek home before the meeting with Japan next weekend, Farrell is aware that Ireland will have to find fixes and freshness in a hurry. He did find room for some positives to take from this defeat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we managed the game tactically pretty well. I thought our kicking game stroke territory, being in the right part of the field [was good],\u201d he added. \u201cAlthough some of our kicks were off, the manner of them was the right thing to do. We gave ourselves a bit of territory but it\u2019s all about converting. It\u2019s all about putting points on the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the start of the second half was pretty good but when you run a good line and drop a ball and all of sudden the ball is in behind you, you give away a turnover, kick to the corner and that\u2019s the game. That\u2019s how quickly the game can turn on you. You can defend really well at times in your own 22 but if you\u2019re giving an infringement in the line out and you go again, then you need to back that up and go again, but we missed a tackle and all of a sudden you\u2019re two tries down and that\u2019s not going to be good enough against a side like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell questioned the logic behind Tadhg Beirne\u2019s controversial early red card at Soldier Field but insisted it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[87393,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-158556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-irish-rugby","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115479419714488963","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}