Rory Best hailed "fantastic" New Zealand as Ireland crashed out of the World Cup at the quarter-final stage.
The 37-year-old hooker had announced his retirement in advance and had to bow out in inglorious fashion as the champions crushed a ragged Ireland 46-14.
"The All Blacks were fantastic tonight," said Best, who was playing in his fourth World Cup.
"We felt we prepared well all week, we felt we had a game plan, that we had enough in our armoury to beat them.
"They just came out of the blocks hard at us, put us on the back foot and like good sides do, they never let us get off that again.
"They were really clinical, they didn't let us get on the front foot, this is a front-foot, momentum game especially in knock-out rugby.
"The boys that are here will look back at this and see how to get better.
"For now you have to give enormous credit to the All Blacks, they were fantastic."
On his retirement and the departure of head coach Schmidt, an emotional Best said: "I’ve loved every minute of it.
"[Joe] brought Irish rugby and my game in particular to a different level when he came here and a lot of credit must go to him."
New Zealand will play England in the semi-final next Saturday.
Eddie O'Sullivan: 'There were cracks appearing this year... We've regressed. It's one thing losing to New Zealand, it's the manner of the loss that's hard to swallow' #NZLvIRE pic.twitter.com/aXI0wmnVY0
— RTÉ Rugby (@RTErugby) October 19, 2019
