Doyle searches for answers as Irish simply shredded

Philip Doyle sensed the nerves in the warm-up, but they had never been a cause for concern in the past.

These players had proven themselves in big games before. Squeezing through against Italy in a soggy downpour and claiming the Grand Slam last year stood out. So too last week’s three-point defeat of New Zealand.

In retrospect, he acceded that maybe the thin air of a World Cup semi-final had messed with his players’ heads, but the mechanics of this dispiriting loss were far easier to account for than the possible source of the general malaise.