When expectations are not met the disappointment and reaction is all the greater, the introspection all the more intense.
We entered this competition thinking that this was our time, and it was all going to plan until Sunday, but truth be told, apart from the French game, there have been warning signs all along, the biggest one of all being the fact that teams like Romania, Canada and Italy all took easy yards out of us when they had the ball.
We thought looking at the French game that we were ready, but France were exposed for what they were by a brilliant New Zealand side and having watched that game I approached the Argentinian game with even more trepidation.
Injuries devastated Ireland
Joe Schmidt and Ireland lost the one thing they could ill afford at the business end of the tournament - their best players.
I said it last week, coming on as a replacement in a game, versus preparing and starting for a game, are completely different pressures and that’s not to say that the replacements were in any way shape or form to blame for our loss, but the simple truth was we lost Paul O’Connell, Peter O’Mahony, Sean O'Brien and Johnny Sexton - guys who make game-changing moments happen.
There will be a lot of rubbish spoken about our lack of real depth, but no team, and I said it last week, can afford to lose those players; they’re leaders, the players who, when you concede early on in a game, give calm to everyone. They’re the players who, when you come back to 23–20, and are in the game again, make the right decisions of where and when to play from. To lose one such player is tough, to lose five for this game - including Jared Payne - was soul destroying.
Small moments changed the momentum of the game
What of those small moments yesterday that actually defined the game, the ones you never get the chance to replay.
First, when we played too much around our own 10m line, before passing back to Ian Madigan, who kicked out on the full. Why didn’t we transfer the pressure back on to Argentina earlier? Would Sexton have done differently? We’ll never know.
What about the little things we control, like Conor Murray knocking on at the base of the scrum when we would have cleared our lines. The final scoreline looks like these things make no difference, but the truth is they do.
As a coach you look at what you control like those moments, or how our defence got too narrow to allow the Argentinian outside backs the space to create the carnage that ensued.
Santiago Cordero, Juan Imhoff and Joaquin Tuculet were magnificent, as were the Argentinian backrow to a man, with Leonardo Senatore a man possessed. But a coach, in a quieter moment, will also look at moments you don’t control, like when Ramiro Herrera should have been shown a second yellow card - making it a red - and with it the game would have gone to Ireland.
That he wasn’t given a second yellow was probably down to the fact that he already had one and so would have been sent off and referee Jerome Garces didn't wan't to make that call. Well that’s just rubbish.
Schmidt can’t say it as it sounds like sour grapes, but these are game- and life-changing moments.
Ireland were second best to a brilliant Argentina side on the day, but they could have helped themselves at times, and also didn’t get the help which sometimes they needed.
The gap between the hemispheres is not as big as big as people think
There is now all the talk of the southern hemisphere being miles ahead of the north, well that is too populist and easy to say.
South Africa versus Wales went down to the wire; Scotland, who lost all of their Six Nations games, were one minute and a wrong decision away from beating Rugby Championship title holders Australia.
The team that is in a league of its own is New Zealand, they are truly frightening in full flow, but they play with such variety and skill that it’s a style we should all try to see coached right throughout the game. But that would entail people all the way down to schools and clubs coaching not to win, but to develop. Hands up for that?
Ireland’s wait to break the glass ceiling continues
So the wait continues for Ireland, and the post-mortem will be a long one, because we didn’t do what we all wanted.
I’ll still remember the pride I felt in Wembley and Cardiff as the green army descended on the stadium.
Irish rugby is capable of mixing it with the best, but the game will get harder as the competition levels across tier-one and tier-two countries gets narrower, and we may just look back and regret that we didn’t get to play with our very best players when it counted most - last Sunday.
Finally, in all of this I haven’t mentioned a quite brilliant performance off the bench from Luke Fitzgerald, it's a shame his brilliance on the day won’t get the recognition or memory it deserves, but he won’t even appreciate it himself given the fact that his side lost.
