Andy Farrell insisted there were no excuses for an "underwhelming" Ireland victory over Fiji at the Aviva Stadium.
There was an after the Lord Mayor's show feel to the middle Autumn series game. Perhaps it was always going to be that way following last week's stirring win against South Africa and then Farrell ringing the changes for this one.
Without ultra-experienced leaders of the calibre of Johnny Sexton, Peter O'Mahony and James Ryan, Ireland often struggle to produce the drive and cohesion required to put teams away.
READ MORE: Ireland brush Fiji aside as rotated line-up notch five tries to maintain winning streak
They did score six tries yesterday - man of the match Nick Timoney grabbed the first two, Mack Hansen bagged two more, Rob Baloucoune crossed the whitewash and Cian Healy got his 11th in 120 appearances.
But Ireland left a heap of other opportunities out there - despite spending eight minutes and two seconds in Fiji's 22, and with Vern Cotter's men down to 13 men for 10 minutes in the first half and down to 14 from the 48th minute.
"Any Test match win should be celebrated, especially when you've got three lads making their debut and Tadhg (Furlong) captaining the side for the first time," said Farrell.
“So, delighted that they're able to celebrate in the proper way with their families. It's such a momentous occasion for them.
“But as far as the performance is concerned, pretty underwhelming. We'll get plenty of learnings out of it.
“But for Fiji, being down to 13 men - obviously with the red card and a couple of yellow cards - and the penalty count being 14-10 in our favour, we should have been a lot more clinical.
“That's the moral of the story. We got into their 22 time and time again, and because of illegalities or the stop-start nature, we lost our flow etc - but we weren't clinical enough by any stretch of the imagination."
The countdown to the World Cup has started and, with this Test being the 10th last before the finals in France, this wasn't the performance that Farrell wanted - or expected - even with nine line-up changes and five bench ones.
“No excuse whatsoever because we're a squad and have all been in camp the same length of time, and we're all learning together," added Farrell.
“We've been pretty good of late starting well and our start obviously wasn't the best.
"You fast forward to the last play of the game, us kicking the ball out against 14 men with the scrum, ready to play when the game is already won, probably sums the game up.
"The balance of judging people is difficult enough when the continuity isn't there as a team - and the game just never got going for certain people.
"All credit to Fiji but we contributed to our performance - our lack of performance."
Robbie Henshaw's early withdrawal was a precaution due to his hamstring problems while Joey Carbery and Jimmy O'Brien will go through return to play protocols.
It remains to be seen if any of them are available to face Australia next Saturday, but Farrell expects Tadhg Beirne to be OK after he was banged up late on, while Bundee Aki will be available after his long suspension.
Meanwhile, Furlong described his day as captain as different but enjoyable, and a "massive privilege".
The prop said: "Thanks to the boss man for giving me the chance. Not many people get to do it.
"It was stop-start, as Andy said. We never really got going.
"I know there were a lot of penalties and we kicked and mauled a lot. Maybe that’s something to do with it.
"We never launched a massive amount but it just felt a little bit stop start. We didn’t get into our flow where we could play multi-phase really.
"We definitely didn’t try to start loose. We wanted to start well and it was disappointing that they beat us so easily at the edge. There’s stuff we need to work on, really."
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