Richard Dunne emerged a battered and bruised man from the Republic of Ireland's final training session at their base in Gdynia.
A knock in the back saw him sit out the final part of training, but causing greater hurt is the manner of Ireland's opening two defeats at Euro 2012 and the concession of seven goals in two games.
He said: "It's heartbreaking. It's your dream to go and play in the championships and play well and be brilliant. And it's just not happened for us, so it's heartbreaking.
"As much as want to do well, we know we haven't. We are playing against teams that are better than us and it's hard to accept that our best at the moment isn't good enough.
"We came here with a dream and an aim of winning the European Championships and its completely gone wrong for us.
"I don't think we had the shackles on, we were just playing against a different standard of teams and as much as we want to be the best we have to hold our hands up. We are being beaten by better teams at the moment."
Any game plans Ireland had for dealing with Croatia and Spain were rendered redundant with the concession of early goals in both games.
A third-minute header from Croatia's Mario Mandzukic and Fernando Torres' fourth-minute rocket left Ireland reeling before they had time to settle.
Dunne could not put his finger on a reason for the errors and believes their tournament could have been so much different if they had been able to get a foothold in those games.
He said: "It's football, nothing’s changed, it's still the same lads doing the same jobs. It's just they're getting goals at times which open us up maybe a bit more.
"There's no reason, nothing's happened, we haven't turned into bad players overnight. On the days things haven't gone with us.
"I just think it's a complete coincidence that they scored. It happens. I don't think it’s anything. It's not like it's this reason or that reason. It's a game of football they scored in the first minute and it kills you.
"It might have been a different tournament if we got through the first ten minutes in both games.
That's the one regret. If we could have got through them we might have seen a different game.
“We might have grown a little bit. We've just not had the chance."
A victory on Monday night in Poznan would lift Ireland above Italy into third place in the group and put a positive spin on a disappointing campaign.
For Dunne and the rest of the players it offers a chance to restore some pride and prove that they are a more accomplished side than they have shown so far.
"We need to make sure we can get through the first ten minutes without conceding a goal," he said.
"It’s another game. We're representing our country so, regardless of how we feel inside, we have to go and give 100% and make sure we turn the hurt into passion and win the game.
"It's not a time when we are thinking about retiring, we have lost two games in a row and we don't want to lose three, so the focus is on the match.
"We have to try and go out and put some pride back into ourselves and the whole country and we want to get three points and hopefully finish in third in front of the Italians."
