Post-mortems are never easy but Josh van der Flier is eager to slam the door shut on Ireland's World Cup heartache.
So good for so long across the course of 17 games, Andy Farrell’s men failed to live up to their own high standards when it came to the crunch in a quarter-final against New Zealand.
There was a slow start, which proved to be a killer, basic errors from players who had forgotten what it was like to knock on a ball, and a malaise that appeared to infect almost the entire squad on the night. And they still came within a score of winning.
In the normal course of events, defeats would be mulled over by players and coaches in the days after but this loss saw Ireland crash out, once again a semi-final out of reach, and any such analysis could only be deemed cruel and unusual punishment.
The 2022 World Rugby player of the year has had almost a month to reflect on what went wrong. It’s a long time in any man’s language.
So Leinster’s BKT URC clash with fourth-from-bottom Scarlets in the RDS on Saturday takes a back seat and when the 30-year-old flanker sits down for a virtual call with RTÉ Sport, there can only be one topic up for discussion.
Much as it pains the Wicklow man, one of Ireland’s standouts across a Grand Slam, a series win in New Zealand and the Pool B clean sweep, the wound must be cauterised.
"Straight after the game, in the changing room, Andy said a few words, I suppose summarising the World Cup and the journey that the team went on and saying goodbye to a few of the players as well," says Van der Flier of the 28-24 defeat, during which Ireland never led.
"But other than that, it was probably lads chatting with each other and individuals reviewing the game, I guess."
Ah yes, the game itself.
Such was the sense of occasion on that night in Paris in front of almost 80,000 fans, most of whom were Irish, such was the excitement, such was the consequence of defeat and the realisation of what it meant, you’d almost forget to look at the granular details.
"What made it so hard, what I found anyway, was I think in our minds there was... you know you can always lose a game but there was no real possibility in my mind anyway that we would be going home," said Van der Flier.
"I was very confident and we prepared everything and the way we prepped was [for] another three weeks.
"That was hard to take. It’s always mentally tough after a game like that for the players because it’s such a close game you can almost look back at any mistake," he said.
"Gary Keegan, our sports psychologist, was great. He sent me a message, just that he was there to touch base and I felt the same support here in Leinster," he said.
"There’s the option there. It’s been really good in that way but it’s hard in that it’s four years building up to it and it is what it is, a World Cup and it’s always going to be hard. The way we’ve been helped out is really good but it doesn’t make it much easier."
Any reflections on why so many players, who had been outstanding in wins over eventual champions South Africa and Scotland the week before, underperformed?
"Looking back to the build-up to the game, the few weeks before the World Cup, I honestly remember being in the changing room afterwards and thinking, and I still feel the same way, there’s nothing I would have done differently, or I think we could have done differently, or better," he adds.
"There are things that happen in the game that you say, ‘If we had prepared that better’ or whatever but certainly going into the game I felt really confident, I felt we did everything the right way.
"Any time they did something well, there’s obviously something to stop that and there’s execution we can do but I think on reflection, it’s probably New Zealand’s best performance for a long, long time," he said.
"Looking across the World Cup, how close so many of the games were, there were probably four maybe five teams all the wrong side of a really close game and any one of them could have ended up winning it."
Josh van der Flier has been reflecting on his return to Leinster following last month's World Cup disappointment #RTERugby pic.twitter.com/7G1tAqjaWZ
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) November 14, 2023
The hangover came in stages but the head was at least able to stomach watching Siya Kolisi lift the Webb Ellis.
"The first week I found very tough," added the two-time Six Nations winner.
"Coming back to Ireland, most of us had three weeks off. The first week you arrive home, there [was] the buzz of the World Cup and everything that comes with that and all of a sudden you are back to normality, you’ve nothing on, no training schedule," he said.
"All of a sudden you’ve a week with no plans, nothing to do, you don’t really want to talk to too many people just because they’ll want to talk about the game so that was tough enough."
"Certainly, the last week we were off I was itching to get back in and really excited to be back in the swing of training with Leinster.
"I did watch the final. I didn't in the last World Cup but I did watch it.
"I didn't really mind who won so I suppose it was just to try and learn something from the style of play or anything. I wasn’t really sure. I wasn’t watching it, fully invested in it, I was casually watching it trying not to get too into it."
Getting back to basics and into URC mode is now the task for Van der Flier and his Ireland team-mates.
Watch Sharks v Connacht in the URC on Saturday from 2.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
