Andy Farrell rues Ireland 'overplaying' in All Blacks loss

It wasn't an outright criticism but it’s as close as you get to Ireland boss Andy Farrell calling out his players in public.

Controlling the match, playing in the right areas and taking the correct options has been a strength of the Six Nations champions for years.

But something went badly wrong on Friday night as they fell to a 23-13 defeat to New Zealand.

Twenty-one handling errors from the men in green littered the 80 minutes, a horrifying stat in conjunction with 30 missed tackles. Too often they got caught behind the gain line, passing under pressure and playing into the hands of their opponents.

The question was put to the head coach following the game, were they slaves to their own game, ignoring the conditions, insisting on dealing with a greasy ball during steady drizzle?

"There was a little bit of overplaying too much," conceded Farrell, whose side lost their winning home run after 20 games.

"In those conditions as well, quality of pass is something that wasn't where it needed to be to be accurate. So some good learnings there."

On the handling errors, he refused to use the fact that it was Ireland’s first game of the series as an excuse.

"It's easy to say it but it's probably just an excuse," he said.

"We've always prided ourselves getting up to speed and being as good as we possibly can be first game up because that's the card we're dealt with in the northern hemisphere.

"I've said to you before that it doesn't matter if you've had three training sessions, 12 minutes of rugby, or seven consecutive games and 50 training sessions, people still expect you to be at your best and unfortunately tonight, we wasn't."

Farrell’s comments about overplaying were put to centre Garry Ringrose (above) and he defended the decisions,