Even with the caveat that this was a first outing of the season for Ireland's starting team against England yesterday, captain James Ryan didn't want to gloss over a disjointed performance.
A cursory look at the headline stats shows that Ireland ran out comfortable 29-10 five-try-to-one winners against Steve Borthwick's men but within that the hosts have plenty of room for improvement ahead of next month's World Cup.
There were 10 penalties conceded, 19 missed tackles, three lost lineouts and 12 turnovers, while a number of kicks and passes did not find their intended targets.
"A little bit frustrating, obviously we are happy to get the win, but we judge ourselves pretty harshly because we just want to get better and better," said Ryan, standing in for the suspended Johnny Sexton as skipper.
"I thought the first half was a little bit disappointing, we just didn't really get into the flow that we wanted to for a number of reasons.
"I thought the second half was better but we are still looking for that full 80-minute performance that we want to get out of this pre-season block.
"A lot of lessons heading into Samoa next week. That will be the ambition, to put in a performance that we can be happy for the full 80 minutes."
Ireland's forwards were penalised in the first half for another obstruction penalty off a lineout - a reoccuring issue within the team and Ryan, at the time, tried to convince referee Paul Williams that it was England, who had pulled a fast one.
"His take on it was that our back lifter came too far around, so he blocked their access," he told RTÉ Sport.
"My point of view was that they spun us, so they spun the back lifter.
"They did it very effectively, so they presented a picture to him that we were blocking access, when actually they just spun quite well.
"So, that was my take on it. I understand that something like that for the ref happens very quickly and they are looking at a lot of things, so I’m definitely not giving out about the decision. But that was certainly the way I felt at the time. We will have to have a look at it again.
"I think they are small fixes.
"We just didn’t get it quite right today. I don’t know if it was a focus or a concentration thing or what it was. They are little things but they are important things, so we will have to fix up on them.
"Their lineout defence was good, they got good air pressure. But the main pressure we came under was just pressure on the ground.
"They were able to get through seams very effectively. We gave them too much access there, so they were able to swim through and either cause us to knock on the ball or we weren’t able to retain possession.
"It’s just some poor drill. Generally the lineout has been a real strength of ours and it’s something we like going to, so it’s a good reminder for us that we need to be fully on it.
"We will have to take some lessons from it today going into next week and the next few weeks."
Head coach Andy Farrell concurred and admitted the first half, when they held a 12-3 lead, was not up to the required standard.
Farrell said: "We always want to be better. The message at half time was we just need to push ourselves to the edge a little, but more and enjoy that pain, take England where they don't want to go.
"I thought we were a bit shy in that, but that's probably down to the first game [for the starting 15]. However, we are two from two and next week is going to be a great week."
Ireland face Samoa in Bayonne in their final warm-up match on Saturday.
