England v Ireland. Twickenham. Sat 9th Mar, 16:45. RTE2

We needed to find a way to win. If a ref gives a dodgy call that can’t be helped, kicking the ball away cheaply instead of creating the opportunity to maybe get it kicked down the field into the English 22 if possible could have been done. I think we panicked at the end there.

The problem to me is that they were able to get it wide and then get a ton of territory down that channel. I'm not sure why that happened but i'd blame that way more than the kick. We should be able to defend the 10m line all day.

I don't think its as easy to diagnose as you think to tell immediately after sprinting after someone to cover a linebreak, make a tackle and then immediately know how much you should be trying to slow the ball down. Its a lot trickier spot than you think it is. Also, its weird that ZERO blame is on the missed tackle there.

Yeah but they just got comprehensively beaten by a not very good England team. That's the reality. No sugar coating it. I know the scoreboard says 1 point but that's not the story of the game I saw. England should have won that game much more comfortably. They left 10 points behind in the first half.

I'm sure we'll pick ourselves up for a good result next week and maybe today is a blessing in disguise in that we'll have less mindless arrogance from certain quarters and more honest appraisal of the team weaknesses and the players that need to be managed out of this team.

I was surprised that there was no review of the hit on Furlong, my initial reaction was there had been an illegal contact. Some odd goings on with TMOs over the last couple of years and what they will review or what they have been fed to review We don't know what angle he was given if any at all

That's taking a subjective view and making an objective fact. The fact is it was 1 point loss, it doesnt matter if you dominant if you cant put points on the board.

The fact we are reacting like this after 1 loss shows why Ireland are the dominant force in the NH and likely will remain so.

I agree. We needed a bit of leadership there. Someone to tell Murray this is not a box kick moment. Despite the poor performance we had it there in the end but he really messed up and there’s no getting away from it no matter how hard some people appear to be trying.

20 wins from 22 says otherwise!

It's a fair point and maybe we will continue being at or near the top but you can't deny that we are at our best ever at a time when England, France and Wales have been pretty dismal. That's not going to last forever.

I'm just disappointed with the lost opportunities.

I dont recall France being dismal in 2022 & 2023 and Ireland were still better. I dont see why it would end, we have a great squad with great talent coming through and our continued success at u20 level shows this trend isnt stopping!