Robinson won't be sending cards to Kaplan

England management's reaction:  Andy Robinson and South African referee Jonathan Kaplan won't be sharing a friendly chat anytime soon. In fact, it appears they won't be talking at all.

When the England coach attempted to do what Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard did during last week's Champions League match against Chelsea (talk to the referee at half-time), the door was shut firmly in his face.

"I'm not allowed to be speaking to the referee at all. At half-time, I tried to have a word regarding the Cueto try, but they didn't (respond)."

As far as Robinson was concerned, all the flashpoints went Ireland's way. English right wing Mark Cueto appeared to have shifted the contest inthe visitors' favour when he collected Charlie Hodgson's pin-point cross-field kick to skid over at the corner. He was adjudged to be ahead of the kicker.

Then there was the English drive over the Irish line. Despite the presence of Johnny O'Connor (an utter nuisance for 80 minutes), Josh Lewsey swore it was a try. Kaplan gave an Irish scrum.

What stuck in Robinson's craw was that Kaplan refused to confer with television official Hugh Watkins. "I think Mark Cueto scored a perfectly legal try. I thought we should have gone to the video ref for Josh Lewsey's try. I've looked at it on the tape and for me I thought it was a try," said Robinson.

"Again, it's how we use technology. We've got the technology there and I felt it should have been used."

If he had his way, all offside decisions for cross-field kicks, now a common attacking weapon, would go upstairs. He referred to Ulster missing out against Gloucester earlier this year in the European Cup.

England were, however, pleased with their performance. They considered it a step up from previous outings, especially the second-half display.

"In the second half it was a well disciplined performance. In fact, it was an outstanding performance. At 19-13, we threw waves of attacks at Ireland and Ireland defended very well, but I think we were just probably one pass away," said Robinson.

He added: "I thought it looked like a try from the drive and (as for) Mark Cueto's 'try', I'm still trying to work out why the penalty was given away because it looked like a perfectly legal try."

England will always field a quality international side, but as Robinson started taking positives from the third defeat of the Six Nations it became clear just how much their strength has waned.

Although they were just a couple of seats apart, Robinson saw a different game to Eddie O'Sullivan. "The attitude of the players I thought was magnificent. Again, what have we been undone by? We've been undone by a couple of restarts where we have not got the ball away and cleared our lines. We've allowed Ireland to turn our ball over, put the pressure on and get a couple of penalties early on and a drop goal to establish a lead. Apart from that, I thought we dominated the game.

"I thought we dominated the set-piece. I thought Matt Stevens had an awesome game with the whole pack. I thought we dominated the lineout. We didn't get any change at the lineout in terms of 'not straight', which again I thought was very frustrating. Take the first lineout of the game when Ben Kay was not in the air and was being pulled down by Malcolm O'Kelly, and it's 'play on'."

He went on to highlight the contribution of Charlie Hodgson, so for this week the man in the shadow of Jonny Wilkinson doesn't have to carry the heaviest share of the blame.

So where to from here? Well, Scotland and Italy is the immediate answer."This hurts big time, but I know that we will get stronger because of it. We've got Italy and Scotland to play and I know the attitude these guys have shown is going to be taken into those two games. We look forward to them."