"Week in and week out, it is always a bit of a rollercoaster and it shouldn't be. NEC Harlequins will be relatively happy with the way they played but we were rubbish today," said O'Shea with some conviction.

"You can't go from one extreme to the next like we have done in the first few weeks of the season. We were so poor today. Quins won the physical confrontation from the word go, our ball retention was poor and it is just not acceptable."

O'Shea was quite happy to be magnanimous towards Quins for the work that they put-in, but at the same time he was unhappy at the way that his side took the ball into contact.

"You can say that our lack of ball retention resulted from the hits going in from the Quins guys and you take your hat off to them and you wouldn't, in any shape or form, take anything away from what they did today," continued the former Ireland international full back.

"But it's the way we take it into contact that sets the tone, and if it's half-hearted you are going to get belted back when a team is playing in a game like that."

"From the way we played against Saracens last week, everybody looked incredibly sharp both physically and mentally right from the way that we wanted to play the game, but today we went out and right from the word go and we were taken apart."

"We were still in the game at half-time. It wasn't that Quins played out of their socks but they deserved to win, you could say that when we were attacking into that corner and Nick went away and managed to scuttle all the way down the pitch that was the game over at that stage. At ten points in it, maybe we could have gone for the point and been within seven but that's life."

"The lads went for it, two big hits actually set our targets back rather than going forward and there was no momentum. They were able to get there pressure on with numbers and Nick snaffled the ball and managed to out run our little scrum half and wing."

Last season it was the Exiles ability to maintain possession and to recycle quickly that was a major feature in their displays and brought them their first trophy, but they have rarely fired this season.

"It has only happened in the one game and we have been poor other than that," continued O'Shea.

"We have all the armour, we know that we are going about it in the right way and we know that the players want to play but at times it didn't look like it today."

"It's up to them, in a lot of ways, to sort out when they go on the pitch what's going to happen. We know the desire that they've got within them and how much they want to play for the club, but Quins deservedly won that, and quite comfortably today, and we didn't even deserve a bonus point out of it."

"As Mark (Evans) said, the line between success and failure in this league is very small. If you are slightly off your game, and we've always said it, you'll get beaten and you'll get beaten well and that's what happened today."

"It has happened to us already a couple of times this season and we've got to make sure that we are on our game week in and week out. It doesn't just happen by carrying it on to the pitch, it happens in the weeks training leading up to it, it happens in your last team run and it happens in the warm-up before the game."

"Each one is a building block, it doesn't just happen by running onto the pitch and flicking a switch, it's a state of mind you have to be in minute in minute out, day in and day out if you want to be competitive and you want to win anything in this league, and unfortunately we weren't."

So have teams worked London Irish out?

"We all study videos and they worked us out like we worked them out but it's nothing to do with that in the end. You can point to people that were missing like the Sheasby's of the world missing and he gives us a great deal to go forward but when you get beaten and when it looks like you've been worked out you look like a poor side."

"When you come along last week and you see the way we played against Saracens, when things are going and the ball is quick then we look like a great side and you are back on the road and maybe too many of the guys took it that we were back on the road, but this game is all about hard work nothing else."

"You can have all the game plans, you can have the lineouts and you can have the scrums worked out to a 'T', you can train all you want but at the end it comes down to desire and who's got the bottle to really stand toe to toe and come out on top. That's what this game is all about, and that's what makes it a great game and today Quins had it and we didn't."