At first it seemed like Joe Schmidt might have been dodging the question.
A number of Ireland players tried offloads in contact against Fiji, noticeably more than Ireland players normally try during games under Schmidt.
The stats show that the hosts tried just one offload fewer, 7 v 8, than Fiji, famed for that aspect of their game.
Was there a specific instruction from the boss to try those "riskier passes", ones that appeared to this point of the Schmidt tenure to be unsanctioned?
"Not really, you saw when Timoci Nagusa intercepted the one off Dave Kearney, said Schmidt, referring to the try that made it 17-17 six minutes into the second half.
"We knew that they would get into the passing channel and that’s always a risk because they get up past your defence line."
However, Kearney’s pass was more in the ‘just a bad pass’ category than it was risky.
But then Schmidt reeled off his list, a role-call that shows he knows who did what, when and how it backfired.
"Good performances in a scratchy team performance" - somewhat blurred view from Joe Schmidt after the win over Fiji pic.twitter.com/6BX3j9iP7E
— RTÉ Rugby (@RTErugby) November 18, 2017
"There was certainly a few offloads that we tried," he said after the 23-20 victory that extends Ireland's winning run to six games.
"Unfortunately a number of them created turnovers: the one off the ground from Andrew Conway; another one from Stuart McCloskey that went straight into touch.
"Another one from Jack McGrath after he’d intercepted one of theirs, he lobbed it back to them.
"Those sort of things are frustrating because you can’t invite Fijian players into the game like that. They are too athletic, they are too quick to seize those opportunities.
"We played a lineout around the front at one end and lost the ball and they scored at the other end."
Schmidt reiterated that Ireland don’t get too many windows to experiment. The November Series is one of those.
It will be interesting to see if his first-string team for next week’s Test against Argentina will be allowed the same leeway.
