Craig Casey didn't shy away from the Monday morning review following Ireland's loss to New Zealand and put his hand up to take the blame for the All Blacks last try.
The Munster scrum-half, who had been out of action for a month with a hamstring issue, was introduced as a 67th-minute replacement for Jamison Gibson-Park with Ireland chasing the game at 21-13 down.
At that stage, New Zealand were in full flow after a shaky opening 60 minutes, while Ireland looked like their race was run.
With four minutes to play, Scott Robertson’s side scored a fourth try with scrum-half Cam Roigard cutting inside Casey, Josh van der Flier and Caelan Doris off a five-metre scrum.
"It is completely on me," said the 26-year-old ahead of Saturday’s game against Japan at Aviva Stadium (12.40pm).
"I got caught up at the time with the winger coming in. I have watched it 25 times and I still don’t know what I was thinking at the time.
"I have to take it on the chin, come back from it, and be better. It is never nice when a scrum-half scores against you, either."
"It has been eating at me for the last few days. I got the chance to say it in the meeting, be honest with the lads. Everyone has been like that over the last few days.
"You probably can’t recover from it if you are not honest with each other or honest with yourself."
Gibson-Park remains Andy Farrell’s number one number 9 and Casey has never shied away from his ambition to usurp the Leinster man.
"I felt I didn’t come on and steal the show the way I wanted to," said the Limerick man, who won his 21st cap against New Zealand.
"I wasn’t too happy, to be honest.
"Obviously, it is difficult when you have lost as a team but you want to come on and impact games. I had very few touches on the ball.
"I don’t want to be second choice.
"I didn’t want to be the third choice over the last few years. It is about taking the chance when I do get it. Hopefully I will get the chance.
"I hope I am pretty close. I have pushed a lot over the last 12 months but I have a lot of respect for Jamo (Gibson Park) as a player."
Casey (above) has played 102 times for Munster, standing in as captain recently, and was picked to lead Ireland’s summer tour against Georgia and Portugal when a huge swathe of national players were away with the British and Irish Lions.
"I loved it," he said.
"I thought it was an unbelievable few weeks, firstly to get back into an Irish jersey after a period with injury.
"To kind of lead the group, to grow my leadership that way at the highest level was class for me, and I definitely think I took it back this summer when I went back with Munster. I tried to drive on there.
"Luckily, Clayton [McMillan, Munster head coach] gave me the chance to be captain at the start of the campaign and I really loved it.
"It is something that I would definitely love to do in the future."
Casey, who stands 5ft 5in, isn’t setting any limits on his potential and dismissed the notion he’s found his journey, sometimes hampered by injury, a struggle.
He said: "I have absolutely loved the journey so far and hopefully it can go on for another ten or so years.
"I missed the Six Nations and it was definitely tough to look on.
"Everyone has injuries in their career. I have been lucky enough so far not to have too many which have ruled me out of games.
"I am definitely not where I want to be as a player.
"I have definitely grown over the last few years but there is still a long way to go to take my game to the next level and to try and get to be consistently world class. There is a lot of hard work still to do.
"I am very ambitious. I want to get to the highest level of the game."
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