Ireland needed a late, late penalty to beat Argentina in their opening World Rugby Under-20 Championship game but coach Nigel Carolan says they never should have put themselves in such a position.
Ireland had a number of opportunities to move clear of Los Pumitas in the Sergio Lanfranchi Stadium in Parma but failure to take their chances meant that Emiliano Boffelli’s late kick put the South Americans a point ahead.
Up stepped late call-up and replacement Tomás Quinlan to save the day with a cool-as-you-like touchline penalty in stoppage time to take victory, 18-16.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport after the game, Carolan said: “It certainly tested my heartbeat but the character we showed to come back at the end was tremendous.
“I think it was pressure we shouldn’t have found ourselves in. I think if we took our opportunities earlier in the game it might have been a different story.
“The conditions were extremely difficult for our guys, we are not used to that. It just made for a difficult game. Certainly if we can fine tune in terms of our accuracy we’ll be in a better position for the next one."
"It certainly tested my heartbeat but the character we showed to come back at the end was tremendous"
Asked if he was confident that debutant Quinlan, only on the field five minutes as a replacement for out-half Joey Carbery, would land the difficult penalty, the coach said: “I’d like to say that it was never in doubt.
“All the players that we have available we needed to use them today and thankfully to good effect.
“We know that we’re a good side and if that was one opportunity that we took, we left a few behind but [we were] grateful that he took the one he did at the end.
“It comes down to the small margins... it’s difficult to maintain that throughout the game, particularly when it’s 30 degrees, we’re just not used to that but we know we are not far away either.
RE:LIVE: @Tomas_Quinlan slots a last minute match-winning kick for @irishrugby U20s to beat @unionargentina 18-16 https://t.co/pE2zTYWgTE
— World Rugby (@WorldRugby) June 2, 2015Ireland face Scotland, who were hammered 68-10 by New Zealand, on Saturday and Carolan wants to see an improvement.
“We’re certainly looking forward to that one,” he said.
“We’ll take a lot of encouragement from how we played today. If we can just tidy up and just tighten the screws in terms of our accuracy we’ll certainly look forward to that encounter.
“It’s important for us that we got off to a winning start in this championship, it keeps us alive."
