No excuses says Lions coach Farrell after Argentina loss

DUBLIN – Coach Andy Farrell had hoped for a tough game against Argentina before the British and Irish Lions boarded their flight for Australia, and said his still gelling squad had no excuses after getting more than they bargained for in a 28-24 defeat.

“We made it a tough game,” a forthright Farrell said on June 20 when asked if he got the kind of stern test he wanted and that the group’s limited time together was no kind of mitigating factor.

“I wouldn’t give that excuse. We need to be better than that. They’re Lions players.”

While he said he was pleased with the Lions’ aggressive scrummaging, the list of areas to improve was long – a “clunky” attack, breakdown, misfiring lineout, kicking game, throwing balls blindly away and battles in the air and on the ground.

“It’s too much, it’s too much when it all comes together... The whole story of the game is that we compounded too many errors and in the end we weren’t able to put the pace on the game that we wanted to because of that,” Farrell added.

“We need to be honest because if we’re not honest, how do we gain trust with each other so we have to say it as it is. There were certain things that we said we were going to do and we need to own that.

“Losing hurts, especially in this jersey so we need to find the solutions pretty quickly.”

The Pumas had the Lions on the ropes early thanks to tries from Ignacio Mendy and Tomas Albornoz either side of a Bundee Aki effort that gave them a deserved 21-10 half-time lead.

The Lions, playing without almost half of their panel due to recent club commitments and injury, were a different animal early in