Gatland again talks of regrouping

When the question finally arrived, there was no ambiguity. "Warren, it has been suggested before this championship that your position as coach was under severe pressure. Have you thought about throwing in the towel now and quitting or are you going to see it out?"

Ireland coach Warren Gatland smiled as he addressed his inquisitor, pausing briefly to collect his thoughts. Pens were poised, rather than poisoned, awaiting a proclamation of defiance. The coach did not deserve a lynching. "I'm not a person to give up. Looking at the Scottish performance, they'll be hugely disappointed with their result against Italy and that makes the game against them at Lansdowne Road in two weeks time hugely important.

"We are very disappointed, we worked hard during the week." This would have been an opportune time to finish his answer but instead Gatland added: "We need to have a look at things that went wrong for us and look to keep working on the things that went well." The latter could be tabulated on the back of a stamp while the problems might require a couple of pens.

In difficult circumstances the Irish coach would have been better served in steering clear of the coaching cliches for it diluted more genuine and honest replies. Few will be assuaged by the assertion that: "We'll sit down and regroup, look at the video and look at the areas in which we need to improve."

Gatland at least had the courage to face down his "tormentors," unlike some of the players who undermined their beleaguered coach further by shirking responsibilities. The Irish coach preferred, not surprisingly to dwell on the excellence of the opposition than to catalogue his own side's limitations.

"I take my hat off to England. It was a fantastic performance. It's probably the best I've seen them play. Their retention of the ball was fantastic, they had great width on the game and they defended superbly. Obviously we are very disappointed. For a number of players out there it was a big lesson, their first Six Nations game. A few of them afterwards commented that it was a huge step up from European Cup rugby."

A crestfallen captain Keith Wood quietly tried to pick his way through the wreckage offering the following insight. "We played reasonably well at times but England played with huge width producing wave upon wave of attack and that's pretty difficult to defend against.

"I remember I looked up and saw that there were 28 minutes gone when we got three points. It was great because we had been under so much pressure for so long. You might not think that three points is a huge amount but you can't score from 80 metres away. It was incredible pressure. I was happy for about 15 of those minutes. We had let them score only three points which was fair enough for the amount of pressure we were under. England played really, really well and on top of that everything went their way and I'm not trying to dig up any excuses."

Assistant coach Eddie O'Sullivan was asked to address England's facility to pour through the Irish midfield, in numbers equivalent to the first day of the January sales. "Quite simply our midfield had a lot of people running at them. England played with width and pace and mixed up their players well. It's always going to be a long day at the office when you're soaking up that much pressure."

England coach Clive Woodward was polite when asked to toss a few crumbs of comfort Ireland's way but occasionally the veneer slipped in the midst of an answer and he dropped the guff of the attentive host. "I have probably been more relaxed all this week than I have at any time in the last two years," later adding: "I was very, very confident all week.

"The next time we get a crack at a big team, which is in two weeks' time, that's when I really want to see what the team can do."