Flood himself was well below the standards he had set in previous rounds missing one straightforward penalty and failing to spark England’s backline into life.

And while the 25-year-old, who finished as the Championship’s top points scorer, admits Ireland were worthy winners at the Aviva Stadium, he insists England can emerge as a stronger team in the long run.

He said: “This will hurt for a long time. Sometimes it is the darkest and difficult moments that bring you together. We will have to use this as a catalyst to drive us forward.

"It's pretty heart-wrenching but Ireland deserved to win it and they blew us away in the first 20 minutes.

"We were stripped of the ball in contact, lost possession when we were trying to build momentum and we never manage to find any go-forward.

"We weren't even anywhere near playing our game. They hammered us and battered us.

"It's not like we were going in blind. We just weren't able to front up in that first 20 minutes and set our marker down.

"We are in a better position than we have been in previous years and that is pleasing.

"There is just a huge disappointment that we weren't able to finish it off with a Grand Slam.

"The team is still growing. You look at the back line compared to ours and there is not much experience in our team. It is a good thing to have a defeat like this hanging over us for a while.”