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All Blacks let 'many opportunities' slip in loss to Ireland, says Beauden Barrett

November 21, 2018

The star five-eighth paid credit to the Irish team and their fans, calling the atmosphere in Dublin the best he’d played in front of.

Beauden Barrett says the All Blacks let “many opportunities” slip in the loss to Ireland as he backed the team to learn quickly and be better against Ireland.

Barrett told media today that the team had been through the review of the 16-9 loss in Dublin and found they hadn’t taken advantage of numerous chances.

“You can learn heaps from a review, the challenge is to see that when you’re out there particularly against a quality side like Ireland, and that home crowd, which is probably the best atmosphere I’ve ever played in,” he said.

“The fact was there were so many opportunities out there on Saturday but what we felt, the Irish did well I guess to show that there weren’t too many opportunities, or make us feel like that, particularly with the way they defended.”

“There were so many opportunities out there that we missed but that’s our challenge, to be better to take them.”

The two-time world player of the year admitted they had a gone away from a few basic principles in the defeat, but backed the team to learn quickly and bounce back from “a performance we weren’t too proud of on Saturday.”

Barrett was enjoying the fact there was less hype about the Test in Rome this week compared with Dublin, pointing out the reduced media contingent this morning.

“Those previous two weeks were intense, England, Ireland, it was that sort of World Cup knockout feeling to it,” he said.

“This week is different, we have a lot of respect for Italy, but already there’s half the numbers of cameras here today so there will be less hype around the game.”

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