The more you analyse it, the worse it gets. The financial spin-offs, the chance to take on a wobbly France at home in the quarters, the fact that so much went into this World Cup effort for so little reward. And there's lots more.

This was a glorious opportunity and it could be another 20 years before Ireland gets a slice of the World Cup extravaganza again. Most of all, this was a chance to promote Irish rugby like never before; an appearance in the semifinals would have done more to sell the game than any amount of advertising or pre-paid publicity.

Instead of becoming cause cele- bres though, the Irish team have again become the butt of jokes, and the source of ire for the rugby public. Some self-serving hidden agendas also demand a blood-letting, and there's now plenty of ammunition out there.

In the immediate aftermath of yet another failed campaign, the normal, knee-jerk reaction is to offer up the coach's head on a plate as the latest panacea. But we've been down this road before, and a new man now would constitute Ireland's seventh coach of the 1990s. So maybe it's time to take stock of this latest disaster.

Where did it go wrong? Was it last Wednesday in Lens, or for the last 16 months, or the last decade or the last century? Most probably, varying degrees of everything.

From the moment Conor O'Shea knocked on after nine minutes to let Argentina into the game, when Gonzalo Quesada halved the 6-0 Irish lead, fundamental errors and wrong option-taking undermined the Irish performance.

Ominously, Paul Wallace had already been pinged at the first put-in. "You're scrummaging illegally and you know you are," Stuart Dickinson informed him. The Irish scrum would remain a source of constant trouble.

The list is almost endless: Humphreys' missed drop goals, more crucial penalties against the Irish scrum, Andy Ward's decision to take the tackle on the Irish 22 with vast acres to kick into, constant penalty infringements, Brian O'Driscoll twice rejecting planned moves by kicking ahead, failure to defend against an Argentinian move that had earned a try against Scotland and had been negated in Dublin seven weeks ago.

And then, after a rigid approach for 75 minutes, most of all there was the panicked reaction to falling behind. It betrayed the colossal pressure some players felt at having to try something special, and then the collective lack of leadership and fear which enveloped them.

In contrast, the team playing without the fear broke free from their patterned shackles, and had a plan B when the scrum failed in the run-up to that decisive try. Surely this Ireland were capable of same?

Alas, this Irish team has buckled under pressure before. When the game gets loose and fast, and they come under intense pressure, the defensive holes and the missed tackles appear.

Probably there's too much baggage there from too many defeats. It's not as if Ireland are an overnight failure story. They've been failures for over a decade, save for biennial wins in Wales and those two wins over England in '93 and '94. You could argue that Ireland have been failures for nigh-on 100 years, save for a couple of blips in the 1940s and 1980s.

There are a couple of other underlying failings which reflect on Irish rugby in general as well as on this team. The biggest lie in the statistics was the 61-40 ruck tally in Ireland's favour.

There isn't the culture in Irish rugby of not going to ground, of staying on feet and applying continuity without taking the ruck option. The Argentinians did it when they threatened to blow Ireland away in the last 15 minutes or so of normal time, and others, such as Australia and South Africa, have done the same.

Nor is there the culture of scoring tries, really. Sure, Irish schools and under-19 and under-21 sides have won various Triple Crowns and even one world crown in the last couple of years. Big deal. The real test of a nation's development of its rugby players is Test rugby.

This reporter saw Ireland's under-21s beat their English counterparts two years ago in Richmond to clinch the Triple Crown. It was nice to be there, but they won without even looking like scoring a try: they tackled their arms off and kicked the leather off the ball. It had no relevance to producing Test rugby players; one of them, Tom Tierney, has taken a couple of years to get into the condition required for Test rugby.

And what happened to the under-20 FIRA champions of last year when they went to Argentina to play in an elite, top-class field? They were beaten into last place by, of all people, Argentina.

The Scots win nothing at these levels - they even pulled out of the schools fixture with Ireland last season. But they produce international players. Ajax, arguably Europe's or even the world's leading football academy because they produce a steady stream of international footballers, couldn't give a whit about results at under-age level.

Yet in case anybody hadn't noticed, the Scots and the Welsh have and will continue to unashamedly trawl the globe for second or third generation players. We should acknowledge that several overseas recruits have been of enormous benefit to Irish rugby (such as O'Cuinneagain, Ward, Maggs and others) rather than decry the practice.

The Irish system simply does not produce enough Test players in all positions, or anything like it.

Yes, Conor O'Shea has unfortunately had a poor World Cup. But what were the alternatives: Simon Mason, Dominic Crotty or Simon Allnutt were the options to the injured Girvan Dempsey, a 20-yearold kid with little rugby under his belt.

As with the full-back slot, this is a non-vintage era for wingers, inside centres, scrum-halves and most especially open-sides, which probably makes it about average for Irish rugby.

The IRFU's academy and infrastructure of development officers might in due course improve the conveyor belt, and in fairness to the union they have given this current set-up every facility and every financial backing. But throwing money at the problem doesn't guarantee success.

To cite the expenditure of £6 million on the World Cup campaign misses the point. If this includes the provincial set-up and the national squad, you can be sure the Aussies, New Zealand, England and others are spending more. This is the professional era, so what's the alternative? Go back to being amateur?

It is equally pointless to moan about the players earning £10,000 from this World Cup on top of their undisclosed individual contracts. So don't pay them? It's probably less than the basic earnings of their counterparts with England and the Big Three in the Southern Hemisphere, and it's a pittance compared to Ireland's international footballers.

For years Ireland was cocooned by its elite status as one of the International Board's original eight. The Ireland-Argentina match programme included all past meetings, two of which recorded Puma wins in 1970. Yet they, along with three others, came with an asterisk which denoted that "Ireland did not award caps for these matches". A more pertinent question might be whether Argentina did.

In the first game when Ireland deigned to award caps nine years ago, Ireland won with a penalty in the ninth minute of injury time.

The IRFU and Irish rugby has always suffered delusions of grandeur, but having been dragged kicking and screaming into the professional age they just have to keep becoming more professional.

With little democracy or input from its members or its clubs, the IRFU have made strides. But clearly more could be done. And if Irish rugby can seriously improve fitness levels by employing a full-time fitness adviser, then why not bring in a full-time skills coach? There are thousands of other solutions, some of them glib, none of them simple and none of them complete in their own right. Sack the coach is one option, but to replace him with whom? Bob Dwyer or Bob Hope? Alex Wyllie, or some other outsider who will require a year to build the player knowledge and information the existing management have garnered? Or, more preferably, from within, such as Willie Anderson and Eddie O'Sullivan, or a Declan Kidney ticket (which would be too soon)?

Progress has been made. The management inherited a team 16 months ago fresh for another hiding in Paris. They cut down on the hidings, applied some defensive organisation, improved fitness levels and blew away those who wouldn't apply themselves; they fostered a far more harmonious relationship between players, management and union alike, and they improved the attacking options off set-pieces.

Admittedly, applying more continuity, or taking the game into third or fourth phase, or adding a counter-attacking game hasn't happened.

Clearly then, it's time for the limited Irish back play and try-scoring potential to evolve. With Philip Danaher moving on, the time is right to bring aboard Eddie O'Sullivan, or, say, the respected Andy Keast from London Irish, or another backs specialist from abroad.

Gatland wants to stay on, as does Lenihan (by the by, possibly the best Ireland have had). The players want them, and the union will be mindful of a third successive pay-off. A few changes in personnel and a new backs coach might instigate a further improvement for the Six Nations. There isn't much to cling to.

Ireland seem to be up the creek without so much as a toothpick, but there's a few paddles around.