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Archer: Simple changes helped improve Ireland for All Black clash

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Stephen Archer may have missed out on facing world champions New Zealand but the Ireland prop admits he knew his teammates would run the All Blacks close last Sunday.

Stephen Archer may have missed out on facing world champions New Zealand but the Ireland prop admits he knew his teammates would run the All Blacks close last Sunday.

It couldn’t have been tighter in the end, New Zealand’s 24-22 victory coming after a converted injury-time try.

Archer had played in the 32-15 defeat by Australia earlier in November but was not included in coach Joe Schmidt’s match day squad for the All Blacks clash.

Even so the 25-year-old, who is eyeing a return to the international set-up in time for the RBS 6 Nations, had a feeling that Ireland would give the tourists a run for their money.

“Joe [Schmidt] held a good meeting and there was clarity of where we went wrong against Australia and what we could improve on,” Archer told the Irish Examiner.

“It was the simple things we needed to work on. It wasn’t changing the wheel or anything, just small little things we could improve on and you could see then, the lads were really focused for training on Tuesday.

“It was a good session and another good session on the Wednesday and you could see the improvement early, like, ‘Jesus, they’ll have a good go here’.

“I’m hoping just to get in this weekend, put in a good performance and stick my hand up again.”