Isaac Boss tried to be philosophical and while he succeeded to a certain extent with the words that tumbled forth, his face betrayed the acute unhappiness he felt after yesterday's defeat at Croke Park.

The occasional wry smile was distorted into a grimace as he tried to elaborate on the raw pain. "It's hard to express, disappointment is probably an understatement. Everyone's feeling it today and to lose like that; well let's just leave it at disappointing."

The New Zealand-born scrumhalf, who started because of a hand injury to Peter Stringer, was looking forward to the occasion as much as any one else but the day will be forever tarnished by the outcome.

Boss explained: "Losing obviously takes a lot of memories away or at least changes the perspective a little. Today the atmosphere was great. Take nothing away from Lansdowne Road, but an extra 30,000 people definitely does add to the volume of noise and the atmosphere. I'm just sorry we couldn't hang on.

"It came down to just the bounce of the ball. My memory of their restart (after Ronan O'Gara had kicked a penalty to push Ireland 17-13 in front) is of a whole lot of hands going up for the ball and it bounced sideways and fell for them. Grabbing that possession was ultimately crucial. You have to give them credit as they went two phases, 40 metres and scored.

"It's a hard one to scramble on defence when faced with a play like that where you're talking about the bounce of a ball. With two minutes to go there is nothing worse because you don't have time to respond. They defended our restart well, drove it up and then kicked it into touch. It was a killer not being able, or have the time, to reply."

The genesis of defeat can be traced back to a poor opening.

"At the start we let the French play too much rugby, which helped them settle but then we clawed our way back. The game see-sawed a bit from then.

"We felt we were in a great position after coming back and going four points ahead. I don't think they looked like scoring in that second half - we gave them a soft try in the first - until that one at the end. We were feeling confident. I wouldn't say we relaxed; we'd played it right but just didn't get the bounce of the ball."

Boss confirmed what most Irish supporters would have asserted during the interval, that the home side hadn't played well enough and were a little flattered to be only a couple of points down. "Yeah, that's fair comment and we thought that as well. We let them play too much rugby and we had to go and put that right. We knew we were lucky to be only down by a couple of points. We regrouped and did well."

As regards his own display, Boss said: "It's hard to dwell on your own performance when there is the disappointment of a loss hanging over the whole occasion. I know there are a few things that I could have executed better but I'll look at the analysis before I make a definitive judgment on that."

The priority now is to respond positively from defeat in a fortnight's time. It will offer a window into this team's character.

Boss is looking forward to it.

"Our objective is to win the Six Nations Championship, so the England game is now an even bigger match. It's just a shame that we have to wait two weeks to get into it."