Margin of defeat shock to system

INSIDE VIEW/Brian O'Driscoll: It was dreadfully disappointing, much more so than two years ago. Then we thought we had a chance but now with the guts of the same team that has worked so hard since then, to be beaten by that margin is just devastating.

I honestly believed we had every chance of pushing them right to the wire. You are never going to beat England by any great margin in Twickenham but you might just be able to squeeze home with a late penalty or something like that. I felt that if we stuck with them for a long enough period we might be able to exert some pressure and force a few cracks. Instead we barely hung onto them for the first 20 minutes. They knocked a couple of balls on, missed a few chances as we scrambled defensively. Suddenly the floodgates opened and they disappeared out of sight.

Even in that first 20 we didn't have ball; we desperately needed to get some continuity, put a few phases together. Instead we were trying to make tackle after tackle after tackle. I don't know why but we seemed to sit back and wait for them to come at us, when we should have been taking the game to them, physically putting them under pressure. If you allow England that sort of latitude, you're asking for trouble and unfortunately we found it.

Things just seemed to go awry from the start. We made a few mistakes, missed a few tackles. I can't point fingers. The first tackle I had to make, Jason Robinson scooted outside me. Luckily I managed to get back and nail Ben Cohen, forcing a knock-on. We could not get our hands on the ball and England's continuity was superb. You'd swear they had a couple of extra players on the pitch. They seemed to have so many options, dragging us first one way then another.

People will obviously criticise us for the way we defended and I really can't explain why we didn't implement the defensive system we have been working on. Teams rely on defensive systems and they are a vital component of the modern game. For some crazy reason we couldn't implement ours and we were shown up as a result.

I don't think I have ever been so glad to hear a half-time whistle. It gave us a chance to regroup, assess what we wanted to do and I thought it was a valiant second-half display. We spoke about pride and the need to front up. We discussed filling the line defensively and not chasing the rucks. We showed that when we played our patterns, kicked to the corners when nothing was on, that we could cause them problems.

Even when they scored their two second-half tries at least we made them go through six or seven phases before they broke through. It wasn't good but it was better.

I thought Rog (Ronan O'Gara) did very well when he came on, steadied the ship a bit and deserved the try he got. Speaking of outhalves, you have got to acknowledge Jonny's (Wilkinson) contribution. People might think he's just a kicker but he is a quality running number 10. He mightn't have shown too much of that since the Lions tour. I don't know why but typically he saved it all up for us today. He showed another part to his game that people don't appreciate as much. His awareness of space is phenomenal and he certainly exploited that.

We have now got to put this defeat behind us. Sure, you have to look at the video and analyse where things went wrong on a personal and collective basis and try to rectify those mistakes. On Wednesday and Thursday of last week it was nice watching the Welsh video in the airport hotel: it'll be the complete opposite this week but you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Saturday's match was a shock to the system but at the same time you have to recognise England's performance. We didn't allow Wales to play in the previous match and the English did that to us this time. They made it uncomfortable for us at the set-pieces, stole some lineout ball and never allowed us the platform to get into the match.

There was a minimal amount of space out there. A couple of times I went for a little gap on the inside only to get blitzed. They just defended so well. Nothing seemed to go right for us on the day. That time when Peter (Stringer) made a break up the blindside, I thought it was a case of just draw and feed while he thought it was a case of drag the cover to the corner and switch it back inside. Typical of the day really.

Coming off the back of the Welsh victory we should not have allowed this to happen. One good thing is that we have an opportunity to put things right in two weeks. That's very important. We have to make sure this defeat was a once-off.

(In an interview with John O'Sullivan)