"losing hurts, especially in this jersey" - Andy Farrell and Maro Itoje react to Lions defeat to Argentina

Despite flashes of potential, the Lions’ performance was littered with errors and inconsistencies, in what was a fact Farrell and captain Maro Itoje didn’t shy away from in their post-match press conference. Farrell wore his heart on his sleeve, when asked how he felt not that the first match of the tour was 'out of the way'.

“I hate that, ‘out of the way’,” Farrell said. “Honestly, losing hurts, especially in this jersey. So we need to find the solutions pretty quickly and be honest with ourselves. There has to be some good come from this.”

“We’re not sugar-coating anything. We need to be honest, because if we’re not, how do we gain trust with each other? There are certain things we said we were going to do, and we need to own that and review it properly.”

“You can try and say we had plenty of opportunities and should have done better to convert them, but the whole story of the game is that we compounded too many errors. In the end, we weren't able to put pace on the game because of that.”

Farrell dismissed any suggestion that the defeat could be put down to unfamiliarity among the players, despite how the Lions have only been training together for the past two weeks. Throw into the mix the changing faces with the Premiership and URC finalists in and out of camp, and the potential for disruption was there for the men in red. However, Farrell will not use that as any kind of excuse.

“Oh no. I wouldn’t give that excuse. We need to do better than that. It is what it is. Good players coming together – of course we ask a lot of them – and maybe we put too much pressure on the side. It certainly looked like we were a little bit disconnected at times.

“Look, we’ll review what we said we were going to own, and then we need to make sure that we get something positive from that, because it’s all about how we move forward.”

“Obviously a better all-round performance,” Farrell added, when asked what kind of response he expects. “It’s not just one thing – it’s a compounding of quite a few bits. The amount of balls we threw blindly, either to the opposition or the floor, is a stand-out. Combine that with the kicking game, the aerial battle… the scraps on the floor always seemed to go to Argentina. There was a bit of fight and hunger from them that we can’t accept.”

“When it all comes together – breakdowns, lineouts, everything – it’s too much. And there’s a reason why people get cramp or look tired, or are unable to capitalise on opportunities. Probably subconsciously, you’re suppressing yourself with the compounding of errors. It obviously needs to be addressed.”

Captain Maro Itoje echoed Farrell’s assessment, particularly when asked about the malfunctioning line-out. A stand-out mistake of the second half saw replacement Lions hooker Ronan Kelleher overthrow a line-out on the Argentina 5m line, in what was a costly waste upon a 71st minute attacking drive with the Lions still chasing the game.

“I think we were just finding our rhythm. Unfortunately we couldn’t get it quite as smooth as we wanted it to be today, but we’ll definitely get better. We’ll review, learn the lessons, and get better.

“As we improve our relationships and spend more time together training and understanding each other’s triggers, that will come. There are no excuses – we should have been better today, more accurate – but we’ll learn and get better together.”

Reflecting on the occasion itself, Itoje was quick to praise the home support. Despite coming away from his first match as Lions captain on the wrong side of the score-line, the magnitude of witnessing a sea of red was not lost on the skipper. the England and Saracens lock expressed how his side now have a better idea of what to expect for the high-stakes Test matches against the Wallabies.

“It was a spectacular occasion. I thought the fans were amazing. They [Argentina] gave us a glimpse of what to expect in Australia. In terms of the game, reiterating what Andy said, we gave ourselves numerous opportunities but weren’t accurate enough and probably weren’t consistent enough in terms of piling pressure on Argentina.”