The match was brutal. But the result, in the end, was everything, as it kept Ireland’s winning momentum going ahead of their first World Cup game against Romania in Bordeaux in two weeks’ time.
Ireland were on a 12-match winning streak and last tasted defeat in the international arena in July of last year when they went down 42-19 to the All Blacks in the first encounter of a three-Test series which they eventually won 2-1.
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Beating Samoa was the important part of the psychological piece in the last warm-up game before the pool games begin. It will go down as their joker match, but one they were able to win.
Coach Andy Farrell will choose to see the glass half full after a first half fraught with spills, handling errors, lineout malfunctions and the scrum going backwards. Ireland can partly thank a wasteful Samoan side for the victory, especially at the end when outhalf Lima Sopoaga missed an easy penalty to touch in the dying minutes, won another with 90 seconds remaining and then lost their last attacking lineout.
But Ireland will take it as that – a badly executed game, but one in which they were not defeated.
Losing five lineouts from nine in the first half may come as some sort of unwanted record for this Irish team. There was, to use a current term, mitigation with constant rain spilling for almost the entire match, making handling the ball a challenge. But even that does not explain how poorly the team played.
In that context, poor play and a defeat would have been difficult to absorb at such a late stage and would have held Ireland up to being perceived as a vulnerable side with the Romanians and Tongans, not to mention for Scotland and the towering South Africa looking on.
The fact the senior players were able to come into what was shaping into a chaotic match without real structure, composure or control and in the second half turn it into something resembling the way Ireland usually play, is a positive takeaway. Late in the game they took the ball through phases, looked to have shape and control and strung out the Samoans.
In that scenario, the winning of the game became everything. The team understands that they should have been better, that they must get better. But when they look in the collective mirror tonight, they will say we played badly. But we won. Our winning streak is intact. We move forward.
