“You’ll agree with me on this” – Andy Farrell launches passionate defence of Conor Murray

“It takes an unbelievable amount of dedication and courage.”

While their defeat to England puts an end to Ireland’s dreams of a second consecutive Grand Slam, Farrell believes they still have the hunger to retain the championship and is confident they’re a better team than their game against England suggested.

When asked if any part of their defeat to England worried him, Farrell responded: “No, I’m not worried.”

He added: “In fact, I’d be super-confident in the way we’ve reviewed the game, analysed it and got down to the bare bones of the reasons why and how it all accumulated to England having a deserved win by a point.

“When that’s put in front of you and we agree on that, you tend to want another chance to put that right.”

While a handful of Irish players were blamed for the way they played during the match against England, it’s hard to argue that anyone got it worse than the Irish veteran, Conor Murray, who kicked the ball into English hands just ninety seconds before the final whistle.

Countless folk on all forms of social media slammed Murray for his decision.

But Farrell has since defended Murray saying:

"It’s certainly unfair because this is the way of the world, and you’ll agree with me on this, that the more successful some people are, the more people – I don’t know what the word is – other than get p****d off with success, longevity, people staying at the top as long as they possibly can,”

"Everybody always wanting somebody else to come in and a new fresh young rookie to light everything up.

“It takes an unbelievable amount of dedication and courage to stay at the top and keep riding with the punches, throughout a long career that’s been so successful for somebody with 120- odd caps like Conor.”

Following the last-gasp loss to England, at Twickenham, Andy Farrell was asked how his Ireland team would bounce back. When one reporter suggested the finale, on ‘Super Saturday’, could be an anti-climax, the Ireland coach replied:

“Anti-climax? How many times have we won the Six Nations?

“Everyone would love to be in our position. We’ve got to make sure we’re loving that challenge as well.

“I’ve absolutely no doubt that they (Ireland supporters) 100% will be on song.

"Paddy’s weekend again, with the chance of winning a Six Nations.

"It could have been a little bit better but Grand Slams are unbelievably hard to come by. Six Nations are hard enough, as everyone would vouch for.”

The big injury concerns centre around Calvin Nash and Ciáran Frawley, who both picked up concussive knocks against England. James Ryan (bicep injury) was ruled out of the remainder of the championship, days out from that defeat to Steve Borthwick’s side.

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