Marshall fronts up after word from Joe

Youth and inexperience may act as buffers against the worst strains of criticism in most walks of life, but not in rugby. Not in an arena where the only numbers that matter are those on your back.

No accommodation is made for tender years and lack of caps on the pitch and the same applies off it when players still consumed by a crushing defeat are lassoed into duties which inevitably exacerbate the pain.

So it was that Joe Schmidt’s men found themselves pointed in various directions around the Aiva Stadium on Saturday night as thousands of punters were already flushing the defeat from their veins.