Johnston calls for fielding and bowling improvement as Ireland Fall short in opening encounter with New Zealand

A disappointed Trent Johnston called for major improvement from his team in two of the three disciplines following their 42 run defeat to New Zealand in Sylhet today.

While happy enough with the batting, Johnston was far from happy with the way his side bowled and fielded, with too many basic misfields and dropped catches.

He says the team will work hard between now and the next game against Australia and that if they can execute their plans better, there is still something for them in this competition.

Barry Chambers: Trent what's the feeling in the camp after that game?

Trent Johnston: I suppose it's obviously disappointment. I think what we're continually making probably the same sort of basic errors that we've been doing over the last couple of months, which is probably the most disappointing thing.

The batting side of things has been great. To get 120 plus in our last three games against Full Members, fully professional outfits, is very good. Our fielding was very disappointing today. Our bowling was good in patches, but when you come to World Cups, you've got to be on your game in all three disciplines, and we weren't on that today, and we were found out.

Barry Chambers: What do you put the bowling and the fielding down to, because they've looked pretty sharp in practice?

Trent Johnston: Yeah sharp in practice, but I just think that we've probably got to do a bit more work. We've got to work harder. You know you're never sort of there, you've always got to work on your game. I think tonight could have been, well hopefully a bit of nerves, you had some of them playing in the World Cup for the first time, you know a fourteen and a sixteen year old making their debuts.

I think let's put that aside, we've got to go out in two days time and put that right. We've just to get down and practice tomorrow and work harder on our disciplines.

Barry Chambers: Yes the beauty of this tournament, is that the games come thick and fast. You've got Australia, South Africa and Pakistan. So plenty of opportunities to put things right?

Trent Johnston: Yeah absolutely, you know we're improving in certain areas, and we're probably staying still in others. Probably going back in some. So we're going to be honest, we'll have a review meeting tomorrow, and we'll sit down and have a look at the footage, and we'll try and plan our way, how we're going to beat Australia.

We had pretty good plans put together for New Zealand, and we probably didn't execute them to what we should have, especially with the ball and in the field. So we've got to get that right tomorrow, heading in two days time to playing the World Champions.

It's good experience for the girls, playing at this level. And hopefully that we can put all three disciplines together, because I think if we can, we certainly can come away from here with a couple of wins.

Barry Chambers:The batting must please you, I mean there was good positive no fear cricket there, a lot of boundaries.

Trent Johnston: Yes absolutely, and that's one thing we've brought in, myself and Laney (Mark Lane) have brought in, to show that positive intent to be brave, to go out there and back yourself, and play the way we practice, and that sort of thing.

So they certainly have done that with the bat since we've been here in Bangladesh. So we've got to get out there and do that with the ball now, and do that in the field, we've got to back up our bowlers in the field, and we certainly didn't do that today. Too many dropped catches and basic misfields. When you're at a World Cup, you can't do that.