Best: It will take while to get over loss

A titanic quarter-final at Wellington Regional Stadium ended with Wales emerging from a compelling contest worthy winners.

In public Ireland’s mantra throughout their stay in New Zealand was to never look beyond the next match, but Ulster hooker Best has revealed that privately they were intent on lifting the Webb Ellis trophy.

Routing Australia en route to finishing pool winners to reach the all-RBS Six Nations half of the quarter-final draw only strengthened their conviction 2011 was to be their time.

In an honest assessment of their agonising demise in the tournament, Best insists they will take no solace in the special memories they have given to the hordes of supporters who followed them across New Zealand.

“It will take a while to get over this. There’s no doubt that this was a fantastic chance, we all knew it,” he said.

“We all knew that topping our group would put us in a north-south hemisphere split and turn it into knockout Six Nations rugby.

“We knew we had the ability to win that side of the draw, but we also knew we had to turn up on the day.”

He added: “The bottom line is that we travelled to New Zealand to win the World Cup. We didn’t talk a whole lot about it, but that was our ambition.”