"Fine margins and all that..."Andy Farrell and Johnny Sexton spoke for 14 minutes in their press conference following the agonising 28-24 World Cup quarter-final defeat to New Zealand at Stade de France, and the Irish coach's first six words summed up how little there was between the sides.The All Blacks led Ireland from start to finish in Paris, and yet Farrell's side were a whisker away from winning a game they never should have won.While there were missed opportunities in the first half stemming from an again sloppy lineout, the chances in the final 10 minutes stuck in the Irish coach's mind.
The 38 phases of attack to end the game seemed to last an eternity before Sam Whitelock's winning turnover, while on 70 minutes they also came within a whisker of taking the lead for the first time when Rónan Kelleher's effort at the back of a maul was held up over the line."Those little bits are all over the game, aren't they?," Farrell added."Ifs, buts and maybes and all that, but at the end of the day it was two good teams out there playing some outstanding rugby, and unfortunately for us we came out on the wrong side of the score."The defeat marks the eighth time Ireland have fallen at the quarter-final hurdle, and not even a 17-game winning run could give them enough momentum to get over that obstacle.There will be a brutal post-mortem for how they've once again failed to make the final four, having been number one in the world rankings for more than a year, but Farrell maintained his pride in his players for how they stayed in the game when on several occasions it looked like it was lost."Sport can be cruel sometimes I suppose, that's why we love it so much, but I'll reflect on it more over the coming days."My initial