Scrum and lineout issues come back to haunt Ireland

As he reflected on Saturday night's World Cup elimination to New Zealand, Andy Farrell mentioned the "fine margins" that ultimately decided the quarter-final defeat.

A piece of defensive brilliance for Jordie Barrett to hold Rónan Kelleher up over the line on 72 minutes was the big one, while a bounce of a ball on 43 minutes that whizzed the tips of Dan Sheehan's fingers as he charged for the line could have changed the game early in the second half.

"Ifs, buts and maybes," was how Farrell described the fraction of luck that could have tipped the scales in Ireland's favour. Other days, those things fall you way.

Very little separated Ireland and New Zealand on Saturday, but the big difference was how little luck the All Blacks needed.

While they scored three well-worked tries there wasn't much flash to the performance. They kicked far more than Ireland, and did so brilliantly. Will Jordan and Leicester Fainga'anuku got the better of the Irish backfield in the sky, while Richie Mo'unga and Beauden Barrett varied their kicking in the opening half with two delicate chips in behind the defence, one of which led to their opening try.

Their back row of Sam Cane, Ardie Savea and Shannon Frizell won the battle at the breakdown, while they had Caelan Doris marked from minute one, Cane in particular hitting the Irish number 8 with two ferocious tackles, the second of which led to the penalty that Jordie Barrett kicked to make it 6-0.

Aside from a couple of errant passes and sliced kicks in the opening two minutes, their performance was as error-free as you could get in a game of this magnitude; just three turnovers conceded across the 80 minutes, while they didn't allow Ireland a single put-in to the scrum.

On their own scrum and lineout