Ireland coach Joe Schmidt and his players are determined to focus on the positives they can take from their performance on Saturday, despite losing 21-13 to England.
It was Ireland’s second successive defeat of the World Cup warm-up series, after losing to Wales at home a week earlier.
But after the game, Schmidt was more interested in talking about ireland’s spirit to stay in game, than criticising his team.
Captain Paul O’Connell, who will retire from international rugby at the end of the World Cup, was also determined to highlight the positives.
He acknowledged there were areas where improvement was needed, but also wanted to emphasise Ireland’s’ strengths.
“I think the set-piece was good,” he said after the game. “I think one thing we’ve been very good at, when we get into the opposition 22, is making those set-pieces count.”
Dave Kearney was also clearly frustrated by the performance in the first half, but felt the team had done well after that pull themselves back into contention by the end of the match.
We were really poor (in the first 25 minutes of the game),” he said. “We let them attack us, let them get out wide a couple of times.
“But yeah, we did have some positives to come out of it, especially in the second half.
“We won the second half. At half time we wanted to come out and play better in the second half and we did that.”
VIDEO: We will not rip players apart for errors, says Joe Schmidt
Watch Dave Kearney tell how Joe Schmidt reacted to Ireland’s poor first half