OWEN Farrell believes has weighed in on the Lions defeat to Argentina.
And he’s sure the British and Irish Lions will “learn a hell of a lot” from their opening defeat to Argentina – a disappointing result that has ramped up the pressure ahead of next week’s tour of Australia.
The Lions fell 28-24 to the Pumas at a packed Aviva Stadium on Friday night in what was their first-ever fixture at the Dublin venue.
Despite a few attacking glimpses, the home side never found their rhythm and were punished after too many fudamental mistakes.
Speaking on punditry duty for Sky Sports, ex- England captain Owen Farrell said: “I think a lot of the game was played in the right parts of the field.
“Obviously a lot of balls didn’t stick and there will be a lot of images that they’ll look back on the game from and learn from.”
He added: “Argentina did incredibly well to counter punch when they got the opportunity, whether it be a ball on the floor or a turnover, they seemed to turn things into points pretty quickly.”
“I’m sure the Lions boys will be frustrated, but I think the main thing is that they’ve played this great game now, this great competitive game that they’ve played in, and they’ll have some images to go off to see what is the standard and what’s not.”
“Why some of those balls went down, why some of those decisions were good and some not so good. I think they’ll learn a hell of a lot, a hell of a lot about each other, a hell of a lot as a team and it will put them in good stead for next week.”
Head coach Andy Farrell slammed his side in his post-match comments before praising the Pumas’ performance and the Lions’ flaws.
The Ireland boss said: “Yeah, we made it a tough game, didn’t we.
“Obviously the first and appropriate thing to say is congratulations to Argentina, they thoroughly deserved to win the Test match.”
“They capitalised very well on the back of quite a few errors from us. Congratulations to them. I’m sure that’s a big moment in Argentinean history.”
“You can try and throw it all around and say we had plenty of opportunities and we should have done better to convert that, but the whole story of the game is that we compounded too many errors.
“In the end, we weren’t able to put the pace on the game because of that.”
“We’re not sugar-coating anything because we need to be honest because if we’re not honest how do we gain trust with each other.
“We have to say it as it is. There are certain things we said we were going to do and we need to own that and review that properly.”
Andy Farrell’s side jetted out to Australia this afternoon from Dublin airport as they prepare for a tense schedule.
British & Irish Lions full schedule
The Lions will play 10 matches in total in 2025, with the first on June 20, and the final game on August 2.
All the fixtures will be at 11am BST, apart from the clash against Argentina in Dublin.
The fixtures are as follows:
- vs Argentina, June 20 (8pm BST)
- vs Western Force, June 28
- vs Queensland Reds, July 2
- vs NSW Waratahs, July 5
- vs ACT Brumbies, July 9
- vs Invitational Australia & New Zealand, July 12
- vs First Nations & Pasifika XV, July 22
