The Irish were reduced to 14 men early in the first half when No.8 Jamie Heaslip was dismissed for an altercation in the ruck, and briefly found themselves down to 13 men when Ronan O’Gara was sin-binned for a cynical infringement in the second period.

Kindey’s side, who have now failed to beat New Zealand in their previous 23 outings, were outscored by nine tries to four at the Yarrow Stadium, with All Black fly-half Dan Carter pulling the strings.

But Kidney was keen not to overreact to the indiscipline shown by his side and backed his players to put this set-back behind them and come back stronger against a New Zealand Maori outfit on Friday.

"It was a horror show. We gave away a lot of soft tries and missed a lot of tackles. We'll have to have a long hard look at that,” said Kidney.

"We have to look closely at the discipline. I wouldn't want to say anything now. We will take a good look when we calm down a bit from this defeat.

"They picked themselves up at half-time, you saw that and we managed to keep the ball a little better in the second half."

Ireland face the New Zealand Maoris on June 18 and finish their tour down under with a test against Australia in Brisbane on June 26.