Bundee Aki has said that the Irish squad are fully aware they still have "a lot of work to do" ahead of the Rugby World Cup's opening in less than a month.
Ireland were dealt a humiliating 57-15 defeat in their World Cup warm-up against England in Twickenham on Saturday and Aki knows that there is only a short amount of time left to get things right.
“We’ve got six days to turn this around, to be able to put in a performance we’re proud of,” the 29-year-old New Zealand born player said after the game.
“We’ve got to make sure we don’t replicate that kind of performance. So it’s time to put in some good, quality training and get back to the drawing board.
“We’d rather get things wrong now than in the future. But we were very slow-footed against England, and we are disappointed.
“England are a quality side; give them a sniff and they will blow you away, and that’s exactly what they did to us.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do; we were off the boil completely. It doesn’t get any easier at all, going to Wales, but in a way that’s the best thing.
“I think all the boys knew what the reality was. Joe gave us a few hard words which was fair enough.
“But now it’s about how the boys bounce back and take it forward from here.
“We’ve got to get the basics right first, make our tackles, dominate our tackles, get in the line together and get out set-piece right first, before we start thinking about anything else.”
Speaking to Off The Ball after the match Iain Henderson said that the squad can't point fingers if they want to move forward and that rather corrections were needed around the line-out.
"We'll get together have a good look at everything that happened a good look at the set pieces the scrums and lineouts and have a proper debrief.
"I think our lineout defence was generally okay, it wasn't too bad. Our attacking one, I think, we just need to make sure we are settled and happy with our calls and moving forward tweak a few things."
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