FOLLOWING ON from the defeats to Scotland, the Barbarians and the All Blacks, Ireland weren’t in the mood for anything resembling moral victories, only the hard currency of a win was on the agenda. As they’d given themselves every chance of an overdue win, that made the taste of defeat all the more bitter.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Paddy Wallace. “Four games defeated now in a row? It’s a long time since Ireland has gone like that. The focus certainly was on winning the game and it’s hugely disappointing to lose it regardless of how the first 10 or 15 minutes went.

“Even at 18-3 down we still felt that we had the winning of the game if we got ball, and we showed that. Unfortunately we executed poorly maybe in some parts of the second half and that cost us the game.”

Lamenting the lack of execution in the second-half, Wallace wasn’t of a mind to analyse his own performance.

“Ach, games sort of pass me by. It takes me a couple of days to review it and pick out the good and bad parts of my game. There was a huge challenge with the personnel they had in that team and the passion they brought to that jersey, it being the centenary year of the Maori. I wouldn’t say it was daunting but it certainly got me up for the game.”

As it had been his first game of rugby for two months, Wallace admitted that “the first 10/15 minutes blew me away, the intensity and the pace of it”.

His 10-12 partnership with Jonathan Sexton worked fairly seamlessly, and he was full of praise for his outhalf.

“Jonny was excellent tonight and a great strike with the boot. Kicking a couple from the halfway was just what we needed to claw our way back in that first half, just take points whenever they were offered, and he did that well, and he orchestrated things well.”

On then to Brisbane, and for all his abundant disappointment over the defeat, Wallace could see the positives in the performance.

“It was disappointing to lose, there’s no hiding from that. It was the dirties’ (dirt-trackers) job to try and get the show back on the road again. Unfortunately we came up short in terms of getting the overall victory but I think the spirit we showed probably lifted the whole squad, and will take us over to Brisbane in better spirits.”

When the Maori beat the Lions in 2005, Jonno Gibbes and Marty Holah were regular thorns in the tourists’ side. No Irish team can hope to compete in New Zealand unless their backrow is on the ball continually, and Ireland’s inexperienced trio showed up well for most of the night.

“Their backrow we knew was going to be a real threat for us and we chatted before about working together, the three of us. I thought Rhys (Ruddock), for a guy so young, was outstanding, to be thrown in at that level and do so well I was really impressed and obviously Niall played his usual game. We’ll see how this week goes, I’m desperate to get on the pitch and get that first cap but we’ll see what the coaches go for.”

The line speed in defence and leg strength in contact were markedly improved aspects of the Irish performance.

“Definitely, it something we worked hard on,” said Chris Henry.

“We targeted the rucks as well and putting the pressure on and I think it was good improvement from last week and now we need to really throw ourselves into that next week because it’s a huge challenge against Australia and we need to take another step forward.”

Geordan Murphy cut a patently frustrated figure when commenting: “The first 20 minutes was particularly disappointing again. We didn’t get out of the blocks very quickly and we gave the Maori a big start. But there were a lot of positives. We came back into the game and ultimately it was our mistakes that cost us.

“It’s difficult. Maybe in the second half we got a little bit too loose. We possibly should have played a few more phases and hit the ball up. I think we got sucked into the Maoris’ game a little bit.”