Ireland limp home deflated

Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll was left stunned by a punishing performance from the All Blacks who showed no mercy in Hamilton on Saturday.

The experienced midfielder said that his team had been outmuscled at the breakdown by the All Black bullies who took advantage of their opportunities in a ruthless manner, racking up nine tries.

He said: They dominated us at the breakdown. They smashed us today and, as a result, we weren't able to put together many phases. There was an amount of unforced errors on top of that.

"I can't remember all of their scores but they didn't have to work too hard for a lot of them. It is difficult to look back on other performances (by New Zealand against Ireland) and think of a better one," added O'Driscoll.

The world champion All Blacks had to rely on a last-minute Dan Carter drop-goal to maintain their unbeaten record against Ireland last week, but bounced back in fine style, and O'Driscoll admitted that there had been a significant step up in intensity.

"They were hurting from last week and they certainly put that right. Being able to keep a team scoreless is pretty impressive," he said.

The Irish skipper was particularly gutted by the fact that his team had not managed to score any points, which underlines just how dominant the All Blacks were.

"You get sick of that scoreline pretty quickly. It is a difficult one to take today," he said.

Coach Declan Kidney said that his team will have to do some soul-searching in the off-season after such a punishing defeat.

"Right now it hurts, it is easy to hop on the bandwagon right now. We've found out a lot of things about ourselves but we will look at that in the off-season," he said.