Andy Farrell left 'underwhelmed' by error-strewn Ireland in Fiji win

Ireland head coach Andy Farrell lamented a lack of ruthlessness and a string of errors following a "pretty underwhelming" 35-17 victory over Fiji.

A much-changed Ireland side retained their status as rugby's top-ranked nation but were far below their free-flowing best against depleted opposition in a disjointed Dublin display.

Fiji were a man down for most of a stop-start second half at the Aviva Stadium following the dismissal of flanker Albert Tuisue, while Manasa Saulo and Api Ratuniyarawa each spent spells in the sin bin.

Nick Timoney’s two tries, plus scores from Robert Baloucoune, Mack Hansen and Cian Healy, helped Ireland back up last weekend’s win over world champions South Africa.

Farrell, who selected Tadhg Furlong as captain and gave debuts to prop Jeremy Loughman and replacements Jack Crowley and Cian Prendergast, was far from pleased with the performance, having made nine personnel changes to the starting side which toppled the Springboks.

"Any Test match win should be celebrated, especially when you’ve got three lads making their debuts and Tadhg captaining the side for the first time," said Farrell.

"But as far as the performance is concerned, pretty underwhelming. When you look back and analyse a performance like that, you will get plenty of learnings out of it.

"But for Fiji being down to 13 men, with a red card and a couple of yellow cards and the penalty count being 14-10 in our favour, we should have been a lot more clinical than we were and I think that’s the moral of the story.

"We got into their 22 time and time again – and, yes because of illegalities and the stop-start nature, we lost our flow. But we weren’t clinical enough by any stretch of the imagination.

"Our start wasn’t the best and fast forward to