You could get sick of the place. As with other visitors, you come, you see, and you get whacked. As was the case two years ago, the Swing Low brigade seemed to become a little bored when their heroes relaxed, suitably sated after the sacricial christians had earlier been served up to the lions for their delectation. Feeding time was over. Yawn. Gerry Thornley reports.
Two years ago, at least, Ireland tore up the script after defeat and started afresh, kickstarting a bright new dawn with a record win over Scotland a fortnight later. In a way though, the progress of the intervening two years only made last Saturday's latest record defeat at Twickenham all the harder to take.
In the same way that one swallow didn't make a summer against Wales of course, a good team doesn't become a bad team overnight. Hence, the wounds mightn't cut as deep as two years ago, but nevertheless the scars from this latest hammering will take some healing too.
Eddie O'Sullivan spoke afterwards of this being a reality check and that not only applies to pundits, supporters and players alike, but perhaps also to the coach and his back-up staff, Declan Kidney, Niall O'Donovan and Mike Ford. Certainly there was plenty in the line-outs and defence for the latter two to get their teeth into when they and the squad come together for a video nasty on Wednesday and Thursday.
The retention of Saturday's 22 for that get-together, minus the injured Geordan Murphy (damaged medial ligaments) and Rob Henderson (torn groin), plus the addition of Paul O'Connell, Mike Mullins, John Kelly and Tyrone Howe suggests there will be nothing like the same wholesale changes for the game at home to Scotland next Saturday week.
"I think we've got a good, young profile squad at the moment with a lot of good players and I don't see the need for wholesale changes. We are what we are, and we have what we have, we've just got to get better at doing what we do. Today was a landscape we knew could happen to us if the game went the way it went and it went that way unfortunately. England can do that to any team, we're not the first team to get a pounding here. We're not happy about that but you've got to step back and build from this, learn something from it."
Shane Horgan will also be checked on to see if he can return for the unlucky Murphy, who will be sidelined for at least three weeks, but Keith Wood is given little or no chance of making a knight-in-shining-armour return to arms.
In the short-term then, O'Sullivan and co are clearly looking at their options in the second-row. And given Malcolm O'Kelly worked harder than most on Saturday and remains Ireland's primary ball-winner, while Gary Longwell again did well when he came on, this could mean the eagerness to have O'Connell back in the frame will put pressure on Mick Galwey for his place.
Frankie Sheahan's wounds from Saturday will be amongst the hardest to heal and O'Sullivan pointedly and repeatedly said "the line-outs didn't fire". Shane Byrne, like all the replacements, worked hard when he came on and looks as hungry as he's ever done. He possibly deserves a chance though arguably it would be rough to jettison Sheahan and not give him one more chance.
The problem with the clear improvement from replacements when the game was done and dusted is - how much relevance did this have? We've seen it before so many times on previous bad days: in Twickenham two years ago, in Canada later that summer, in Murrayfield last year to name but three.
It's good, too, that Ronan O'Gara is regaining his best form but, while Humphreys was targeted defensively, let's be fair to the player: he hardly had any ball worth the name when he was at outhalf. Further afield, one change will be forced upon them on the wing, with Shane Horgan and Howe clearly next in line.
Longer term though, the mobility and size of the English team and especially the tight five, showed the kind of modern-day rugby animal Ireland are going to have to play from one to 15 if they are to compete with the first division. And Saturday showed the magnitude of that task.
Sooner rather than later replacements for the warriors Peter Clohessy and Galwey are going to have to be found. These are paticularly tough decisions for Kidney and O'Donovan. Of course they're professional coaches, who will judge players on their merits and make the tough decisions, but they're human as well and you wouldn't envy them some of the decisions which have now come more sharply into focus.
One senses, too, the coaching staff will not be inclined to judge the back-row purely on the evidence of Saturday, when they hardly counted, but once again Anthony Foley's detractors will say a fast, open and wide game didn't suit him.
And though David Wallace is, pound-for-pound, Ireland's most dynamic ball-carrying forward, question marks about his defence as a genuine openside as well as his impact at the breakdown, where Neil Back was king again, will have been revived by his strangely off-colour performance at Twickenham.
For the time being there's no doubt that the management and the vast bulk of this team is good enough to rectify the line-out, improve the restart game and strengthen the defence sufficiently to beat Scotland. Although it might have been viewed differently if Warren Gatland was still in charge, especially by the IRFU kingmakers, Saturday was a forgiveable blip against an awesome side at their best. It'll be a whole lot different with the ball.
Yet the latest Twickenham mauling re-affirmed just how hard it is to extract consistently good performances from Irish sides throughout the course of a campaign. After all, Ireland have only won one Grand Slam in over 100 years of trying.
