There was no hiding the disappointment as Ireland's players traipsed into the post-match mixed zone after yesterday's shock 23-22 loss to England.
After being moved from scrum-half to winger after Ireland lost Calvin Nash and Ciarán Frawley to head injuries, Jamison Gibson-Park was then placed in front of the assembled media in the bowels of a still-rocking Twickenham Stadium.
As much as he didn’t want to be on the wing, he hardly relished his post-game duties either.
If Ireland had have won it would have been a steal, not that that fact would have made it any less sweet.
The New Zealand native felt his side left it behind.
"We're pretty gutted," he said.
"It was there for the taking, I suppose, but fair play to England. They showed up today.
"I mean, we were right in it. They obviously won it in the last minute which meant we were on the right side of the ledger towards the end of the game.
"I don't know, it's tough. Plenty of things to review and obviously we have to dust ourselves down because there's still a championship on the line."
Ireland had won their opening three games, against France, Italy and Wales, with bonus points and Gibson-Park admitted that England had brought them to a different level.
"Yeah, probably, but I mean we tried to prepare ourselves as well as we can," he said.
"We’ve had two weeks lead-in to this game. We obviously tried to prepare ourselves as well we could but I suppose it’s not all doom and gloom at the same time.
"We put some good stuff out there as well and we were right in the game until the bitter end. I suppose the overall feeling is that there is a lot to learn and a lot to get better for next week."
Ireland are still in pole position to claim a second consecutive Guinness Six Nations and depending on results elsewhere, could afford to draw, or even lose against Scotland in Dublin next weekend and retain their title.
"Faz [Andy Farrell] has already said to us that we’ve got to dust ourselves down, congratulate England, they were the better team today and just get ready for Scotland next week," added the 32-year-old.
Captain Peter O’Mahony felt Ireland did many things well but had to credit their opponents, who produced one of their best performances in years.
"We were playing against a quality side," said O’Mahony.
"I thought our set-piece was good. They have a good scrum, a good set-piece, good lineout defence, good lineout attack.
"I thought we got on okay set-piece wise. They came hard at the breakdown.
"We spoke about it beforehand but they were good and disrupted us. They were clinical the way they did it. It was a savage battle out there."
