England stuck to their own brand of protocol. They wouldn't budge for the President, Mary McAleese, and lined up where the Irish team traditionally stand, forcing the homesters to shuffle down the pitch and the President to test the Lansdowne turf with her good Sunday shoes.

The proven best team in the world then went on to demonstrate their wilful lack of diplomacy by running in five tries. Against Ireland. In Lansdowne Road. For the Grand Slam. Their particular, irresistible, brand of protocol, you'd like a bit of it. To that, Eddie O'Sullivan said fair cop.

"Yeah, we were beaten by an outstanding team today. No doubt about that. The number one team on top of their game," said the Irish coach. "I thought we stayed with them for a good period of the game, particularly in the first half, where we'd a very good second quarter against them. I think we needed to score at that point. But they defended very well and tagged on a drop goal against the run of play just coming into half time. That was a kick in the guts for us.

"Then in the second half there was only one team in it. They strangled us up front and held the ball for long periods. They struck at crucial moments, I thought, with Tindall's try probably the stake in our heart.

"We were running out of defence near the end trying to make something happen and we paid a price for that. We could have kicked it (the ball) into the stands and run the clock down and kept the score down but we weren't about to do that. Credit to Brian and the boys but the better team won."

Where Ireland's previous matches against Six Nations opposition revolved around David Humphreys kicking for position and the pack putting pressure on teams near their own line, yesterday's game plan saw the ball whizzing along the backs, with Brian O'Driscoll, Kevin Maggs and Justin Bishop committing themselves to breaking the English defence with ball in hand.

The bald statistics say that O'Driscoll, with 11 carries, was the game's most prolific with Will Greenwood second on 10. Bishop with nine and Maggs and Costello with eight each were also near the top of the list. O'Sullivan rejected suggestions that the tactic showed Ireland to be ring rusty.

"That was the game plan we wanted to play. We were close at times, had good chances to get them and just didn't take them. The thing about today against a team like England is you get a couple of chances and you gotta ace them and we didn't.

"They kept plugging away and I think Jonny Wilkinson was outstanding. He got a great service from his pack, obviously, but we really needed a couple of things to go our way at crucial times and it just didn't happen for us. We just need to keep working on our attacking game, keep working on our lines of running, get them crisper and sharper, make them more decisive when we get soft shoulders and more clinical when we get chances. That's a learning process for all the players.

"We have also got to work on our defence. We got breached again today but I thought we spent a lot of time tackling in the second half. Like all of these things you take the bits of your game and try and make them better. It has taken England a few years to get to the point where they are today."

O'Driscoll, no doubt to the relief of Leinster coach Matt Williams, appeared to have recovered after limping off the pitch with a dead leg. Of all five matches, the Irish captain saw this one as the toughest he'd played in the championship.

"It seemed quite end-to-end, back and forth across the pitch. We were certainly struggling and looking for our second wind because the tempo of the game was extremely high. We knew it was going to be like that. Overall it was extremely fast, probably the fastest I've played in the whole Six Nations," said O'Driscoll.

"Their scramble defence was exceptional and when people did miss tackles others filled in for them. But that has been their strength over the past three or four years and that has been what they are building their game on. But we still had scoring opportunities and we didn't take them. Against England you can't do that."

As ever, O'Sullivan eyeballed the reality of the score. Hurt by the magnitude, he was not about to cut his team as losers. Yesterday's sanctuary was perspective.

"At the end of the day they'll take heart out of the fact that we didn't score any tries against them," he said. "That's a disappointment for us. I think it's fair to say we've come a fair way this year. But we feel very down this afternoon, very disappointed. In the changing room there are a lot of heads down. But it's been an 11-game season and we've won 10 of them. That has to speak for itself.

"When the dust settles on this we'll look back on what was a good rugby season. We didn't pull off the final game but ultimately if you told me last August we'd win 10 out of our 11 games, I'd have said that's not a bad one."