Whether they went into the game too focuseded on the notion of winning and not enough on the performance, or were alternatively too fearful of a mighty England, mentally Ireland looked shell-shocked from very early on by the sheer pace and potency of England's start. An hour or so afterwards, they still were. Gerry Thornley reports from Twickenham.

"We were looking forward to having a right cut off them and we fell flat on our faces," admitted a subdued Anthony Foley. "We couldn't get control of the ball and when you can't get control of the ball away from home you're really going to struggle.

"It's a scary place to come to in the sense that if they get their dander up at all they are scoring tries from inside their own half.

"When they scored their first try we kicked off and we were straight back behind the posts again. You can't let that happen. I think the same happened against New Zealand, they hit us with two quick tries. We've got to look after the ball better than that.

"We've got a lot of hard questions that have to be asked and we've got to get the right answers. They controlled possession, we struggled at lineout time, we couldn't retain our kick-offs and when you can't get the ball, I don't care what team you are in in the world, you're not going to compete."

A fortnight can be an age in the Six Nations and Eddie O'Sullivan tried to keep a sense of perspective. "A lot of things were wrong today but not everything was wrong, there were a lot of things right two weeks ago and not everything was right.

"So we've got to keep a balanced view on it. The next challenge is Scotland in two weeks time and we've got to circle the wagons and get ready for that, and be sure that we put in a good performance."

No team can live with England, maintained O'Sullivan, when they establish the kind of possession they had on Saturday. "The trick is not to give it to them and we did. We participated in our own downfall. We spoiled them in the lineouts in the autumn, but the shoe was on the other foot today."

For Mick Galwey, this was assuredly a poignant farewell to Twickenham, a graveyard on three of his four international visits as well as, of course, Munster's European Cup final dream two seasons ago.

"It's disappointing. We've had a lot of disappointments in Twickenham. I won't be sorry to see the back of it."

Though the same old Twickenham storyline makes it look as if Ireland have been deluding themselves, Galwey highlighted one contrasting form guide.

"Two years ago we lost to Wales at home, two weeks ago we put 50 points on them and we thought that we had turned the corner. You don't become a bad team overnight but at the same time to be a very good team you have to be able to come to places like this and perform, and unfortunately we didn't do that today."

Regarding the porous Irish defence, Galwey commented: "They kept changing the point of attack and that's what caught us out, to be honest. We had a system, we were confident enough with it, but they kept loading the blindside and they just seemed to have the extra men there. They were a bit more streetwise than us."

Denis Hickie, easily Ireland's most heroic defender amid the oncoming blur of white, conceded that "our defence lost its shape really. No reflection on Fordie (defence coach Mike Ford) and as a result we were very well punished by a very good side.We had a certain jobs to do in defence and we didn't quite do them all the time.

"They set out to play a certain way and we didn't really stop them. We probably could have done a lot better. We weren't as strong as we should have been in a lot of areas today."

Admitting that England in the second quarter were as good as any side he'd faced, Hickie added: "If I was being completely objective about it I would say we probably weren't at the best we've ever been in those 20 minutes. We rarely touched the ball in the first half and any time we did we didn't use it."

"They tore us apart, that's the basic black and white of it," Ronan O'Gara said, also acknowledging that he merely took part in a second-half damage limitation exercise.

"All you can do is go out and give it your all. For me anyway it was a chance to get back in the team. I tried to work hard and I think fellas responded. There was a bit of a buzz in the backline again, Maggsy (Kevin Maggs) and Brian (O'Driscoll) were up for it too, and two tries to one wasn't as bad, but the damage was done in the first half."