Ireland richly deserved their success, but England surrendered their 22-Test unbeaten home record amid a flood of errors and a visible lack of nerve.

"The better side won," said Woodward. "We are bitterly disappointed with the way that we played, but you have got to hold your hand up.

"You can take losing, but when you play so badly, it makes it even harder.

"I am in charge so I take responsibility. We’ve lost, we’ve had a bad day, but I am not going to overreact to this.

"Unless we got the ball, we knew it would be hard. We didn’t have a good day and Ireland deserved to win.

"We played badly in every area. Ireland deserved to win, they played very well, and we played very poorly.

"But we have got to move forward from this. You hate losing, but you have just got to cop it, and we can put a line under the World Cup now.

"I don’t think there was any complacency - we lost to a better team on the day. We don’t like losing, but we have always got better after losing a game, and this is still a great team of people."

England forwards coach Andy Robinson pointed to England’s woeful line-out as the main source of the world champions’ problems.

The world champions chose some ambition options at the throw-in, and hooker Steven Thompson struggled to deliver the ball on target.

The Northampton Saint was substituted as England attempted to make some running repairs, and line-out specialist Chris Jones was also called upon to lend some nous - but both switches failed to improved matters.

"All credit to Ireland, they totally dominated us. We had no momentum from the line-outs, I take full responsibility for that, and I am not going to pass the buck," said Robinson.

England captain Lawrence Dallaglio also singled out England’s set-piece play, but said Ireland were deserving winners on the day.

"Ireland thoroughly deserved victory - I don’t think we can have any complaints, the best team won," hesaid.

"If you don’t win at the set-pieces - and we were very poor at the line-out - you don’t stand a chance.

"If you make as many mistakes as we did, it makes life very difficult.

"We didn’t perform to the standards you expect from an England team."

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