While Ireland celebrates a Grand Slam victory, the English press is reeling from a third successive defeat and a scarcely credible fifth placed finish in the Six Nations championship.
One has to go back to 1987, to the pre-Will Carling era, for the last time England placed so low on the table.
Eddie Jones had led England to back-to-back Six Nations championships and 24 wins in his first 25 matches in charge.
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But following three damning losses to Scotland, France and Ireland, the UK media have urged the coach to cull much of the squad and heaped a certain amount of scorn on their 2019 World Cup pretensions.
In the Independent, Samuel Lovett says Ireland's success threw up many uncomfortable questions for the hosts.
"It was fitting that England’s greatest test under the tenure of Eddie Jones would play out in the harshest of conditions. No sunshine, no warmth, no calm blue skies above.
"Instead, a biting wind from the east and plunging temperatures that saw a sprinkling of snow fall lazily on south-west London. Dethroned and stripped of their 2017 title, England found themselves out in the cold. And it was the Irish who put them there.
"Battered, bruised and comfortably beaten, England have now lost three games on the trot and find themselves caught in a crippling identity crisis - one that raises numerous questions of this English side.
"Indeed, what comes next for England? Where are they headed? Do they have the player quality to genuinely compete at next year’s World Cup? And will Jones - a man who earlier this week said he thrives 'under the pump' - be the man to revive the Red Rose?
In the The Times, Stephen Jones believes that the England coach paid the price for blind loyalty to some not deserving of it, and urged the Australian to make wholesale changes or face the exit door.
"Well, that’s that for Eddie’s Mark One team. Their time came to an end yesterday, when they fell victim in part to a sorry lack of players with Ireland’s power and nous, and also to the effects of Jones’ over-loyal selections, odd pronouncements, and his (praiseworthy) attempts to produce a team who can play with some sort of freedom.
"Jones must urgently reassess his squad, his coaching staff, the lack of an attack coach, the lack of true Test forwards of the modern era - even a scaled-down version of the rampaging Tadhg Furlong would do - the unbalanced back row, and the baby players in the squad who are four years away from Test class yet still parade at Pennyhill Park."
Paul Rees of The Guardian claims this championship's decisive moments occurred in Paris.
"It was where Johnny Sexton, on the opening weekend, delivered a precious away victory for Ireland four minutes after time was up with a 45-metre drop goal after his side had taken play through 41 phases, and it was where England surrendered their crown, fumbling at the breakdown in the last play of the game after France had wasted an opportunity to end the match.
"Ireland’s campaign was summed up in their final moments in Paris, just as England’s was. What marked the champions apart from the rest was their ability to retain possession, as they demonstrated again in securing the grand slam at Twickenham, while England struggled throughout at the breakdown, an area their opponents targeted after watching Samoa dominate that area at Twickenham last November.
"Possession was nine-tenths of the score."
Mick Cleary in The Telegraph said that Jones had gone from "messiah to the man with his finger in the dyke as the water comes pouring through".
"It was not just the elements sending a bitter chill through the bones of English rugby, so too did this loss, their first at Twickenham in the championship in six years, a salutary and sobering turn of events. Their 2019 World Cup plans are in tatters, their morale shredded and their prospects bleak with three tests to come in South Africa in June.
"It has been quite a fall from grace and the contrast was stark. Ireland were assured and potent while England were ragged and slipshod, infused by the wrong sort of desperation.
"It has been a horrible time for England, bewildering for their followers who had thoughts only of a supposed global shoot-out with New Zealand in November. The All Blacks will be sleeping easy in their beds."
The Daily Mirror's Alex Spink acknowledged that the better and more clinical team won at Twickenham but did argue that England were hard done by on a couple of the refereeing and TMO calls.
"To the naked eye it looked a try. Kearney and Watson went up, the ball bobbled loose, Garry Ringrose got the scoring touch. But the video ref should not have been using his naked eye. Replays showed Kearney had got a touch. It should have been called a knock-on, not five points to the visitors.
"Twenty minutes later Bundee Aki ploughs into Elliot Daly, who was already on his way down after being tackled. It is a carbon copy of Sam Underhill’s yellow card hit at Murrayfield. Bordering red card. TV match commissioner Ben Skeen takes a look. Aki gets off scot free."
However, Spink said later on his piece that it would wrong to believe the result was one decided on "small margins".
Turning to the online community, Tom Fordyce on the BBC suggested that Ireland are very close to being the best rugby team in the world at present and contrasted them with a "one-dimensional" England side who showcased a complete "inability to compete at the breakdown" in this campaign.
"There are those making the argument that Ireland deserve now to be called the best team in the world. If they are not then they are mighty close. Twelve wins in a row for the first time in their history, only a third ever Slam sealed in a stadium where they hadn't won for eight years. And they are doing it all in a way that the All Blacks, the only team above them in the world, would find familiar.
"There is a cold-blooded execution where others rush and spill: making exactly the same number of entries into the opposition 22 against France, Wales and Scotland as England but coming away with almost three times as many points; a total of 31 points scored in this championship when the clock has been red.
