The Irish provinces have traditionally provided succour in times of distress for the national side. But not this time.
With the sour taste of failure at the World Cup still fresh in mouths, Leinster took beatings off Wasps, at home, and Bath, while Ulster were overrun by Saracens at Ravenhill in the Champions Cup.
Munster, meanwhile, secured a bonus-point win over Treviso but that performance, too, left a lot to be desired from Anthony Foley’s men.
But, despite the gloomy outlook, Leinster forward Rhys Ruddock was quick to dismiss the notion that the situation is irretrievable.
Asked if he believes in the doomsday scenario for Irish rugby on the back of recent results, Ruddock said: “No. I think as a player and as a group you have to learn that things get said, that [if] you have the best performance, everyone builds you up.
“If you get too carried away by that, you start believing it, you get pumped the next week.
"It’s not the end of the world"
“In the same way, you have a couple of bad performances, a couple of bad results, you’re disappointed but you’re in it together.
“You don’t start listening to people doubting you and ruling you off.
"You just pull tighter together as a group and try and prove people wrong, and stick together and fight it out and I think that’s something that Leinster are good at. It’s not the end of the world.”
Triple champions Toulon, who were beaten 32-6 by Wasps at the weekend, wait for Leinster on 13 December.
Ireland international Ruddock knows that they can’t expect to win in France by just flicking a switch on game day.
Leo Cullen’s side must show incremental improvement in the next two Pro12 games, starting with the visit of Ulster on Friday night.
Ruddock, who turned 25 earlier this month, said: “We’ve got a massive game this weekend to try and pull together and out-work Ulster.
“We’re fighting to stay in the top four at the moment. We’ve got two games before we’re back into Champions Cup.
“We’re not going to underperform in the next two weeks, not make those improvements that we spoke about and then expect to turn it on all of a sudden and beat Toulon.
“We need to start making little improvements – 5%, 10% each week and I think that will lead to the performance that we want over the coming weeks.”
