Joe Schmidt admits he didn't foresee Ireland's dire performance against New Zealand coming down the line despite four sobering defeats in 2019.
The World Cup quarter-final exit to New Zealand on Saturday followed defeats to England (2), Wales and Japan over the last nine months.
But, after going toe-to-toe with the All Blacks during his Ireland tenure, the 46-14 spelled the end of his time in charge.
In the four previous meetings the total score between the sides, sharing two wins and two defeats since 2013, was 87-83 to Ireland.
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But when it came to the crunch match in Tokyo, a fixture that Ireland players and management had consistently stated that they were building towards, it was New Zealand who were able to up their game and land a record World Cup defeat on Ireland.
"It all probably contributes to a greater disappointment because the greater the expectation the further you fall when you do get that disappointment," Schmidt told RTÉ Sport.
"But in a quarter-final against the All Blacks whether you lose by one point of 30 you are still out of the tournament.
"So we are disappointed with the nature of the defeat because in four previous games against the All Blacks they had all been very close to one-score games, either [way].
"For us to do that on the biggest stage is the biggest disappointment.
"To save the biggest disappointment for the last game after six and half years is something that I haven’t really been able to distance myself from yet."
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Schmidt also rejected the idea that the team failed to evolve since a memorable 16-9 win over New Zealand last November.
"I'd dispute it massively," he said.
"If you have a look back at that first half [against New Zealand] we go through some phases in the lead up to them kind of knocking the ball down and getting a five-metre lineout.
"We’ve created a really good overlap and I think we’ve done it using the ball really effectively.
"We created plenty of chances; even in the Six Nations we scored more tries than the winner.
"I’d just say it’s not for lack of effort. We certainly wanted to play with a fair bit of width.
"Maybe we built [the World Cup] into a self-consuming monster.
"We didn’t play as well as we could. I have to take responsibility for that. If I had my time over I might do it a little bit differently."
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