Players baffled and embarrassed

Amid so much turmoil in the world, perhaps a degree of comfort can be taken from the prevalence of some old truisms. And when it comes to playing rugby in Murrayfield, Ireland are as rank bad awful as they ever were.

Loitering outside the entrance to the VIP and players' area awaiting the hushed, desultory comments from some of the vanquished Irishmen was a near Groundhog Day experience. Two years on, same place, pretty much same outcome and the same grim retreat from Murrayfield about to begin.

As much as anything else the Irish players simply looked stunned. At the preceding press conference Keith Wood had expressed their acute disappointment. "I have to say we firmly believed we could win. I don't think we made any presumptions but we seem to fulfil our past histories here. It's just goddamned, bloody dΘjα vu when we come out here. We didn't perform and they performed above themselves."

For the most part, though, they seemed as incapable of explaining the reasons for the limp manner of this defeat as anyone else.

Credit was, predictably, heaped on Scotland, in particular what Kieron Dawson called their "blitz" defence. "We were on the back foot from the start. We didn't get much line-out ball, they competed very well for ours. We didn't steal much off them. We were beaten in the back row, we were beaten everywhere," he said.

"We weren't getting much go-forward ball, either from the front five or our backs, but you've got to take your hat off to the Scots, we were beaten hands down in the back row. A disappointing day for everyone."

He added: "Our defence wasn't sound, our attack wasn't sound. We just seemed to be at sixes and sevens, and there was no real explanation for it. We just didn't seem to be playing together either. It comes down to a mental thing I suppose. There's no real explanation for it.

"I'm sure the supporters and the media are disappointed, but there's nobody more disappointed than the players."

So, however well Scotland played, Dawson admitted that collectively the Irish performance merited about two or three out of 10. "That would be pretty fair, which is the most disappointing thing."

"It was one of those days when nothing seemed to go right," said Brian O'Driscoll. Asked whether his own heavy marking by the Scots would be a portent of things to come, O'Driscoll said: "I certainly hope not. Obviously it won't be the case in all games because we won't be getting beaten in all facets of play and so we will be getting more space. At the same time it could be a little taste of what abuse may come."

Denis Hickie accepted that for all the pre-match word from the camp that they had trained excellently, they looked like a poorly-prepared side.

"We can only do so much in training, but when it came to the game we didn't really get into our patterns. Our options weren't there. We didn't cope well with the way they defended. I'd never say it was embarrassing playing for Ireland but we didn't get anything going really."

However, Hickie denied that there was a palpable defeatism amongst the team before the end. "That suggests we threw in the towel with a certain amount of time to go, and I don't think that was the case.

"What we tried wasn't working and no matter how hard we tried it didn't seem to be working at all. They kept the pressure on us and the harder we tried the more mistakes we made, as often happens."

Warren Gatland looked as stunned as anyone, and conceded that "we will have to take a good hard look at ourselves".

Changes will be inevitable for the re-arranged game against Wales in three weeks time. One or two of those might be enforced, as Geordan Murphy will almost certainly be ruled out with a torn hamstring while John Hayes must be doubtful due to the 22 stitches which had to be inserted above his right eye following a clash of heads with Jeremy Davidson.

Effectively, though, the management will only have the opening round of games in the European Cup next weekend to go on, as the 22-man squad for Cardiff will have to be named prior to their assembling in Greystones on Sunday week.