Ellis Genge apologised to England's supporters, conceding he and his team-mates "let everyone down" during their heavy Six Nations defeat by Ireland.

Steve Borthwick's side, who were well beaten by Scotland at Murrayfield last week, suffered a second successive loss, after going down 42-21 at Twickenham.

England were slow out of the blocks against Scotland, and followed suit a week later, conceding three tries inside the opening half an hour.

Genge could not mask another poor display by the 2003 world champions, but insisted things will improve.

"What do you do? Two weeks in a row, conceding so many points in the first 15 minutes," he told BBC Sport. "There is no mountain to climb after that, and everyone has to take a look at themselves.

"No-one knows what the answer is right now, or we would have sorted it out.

"It opened up scar tissue from last week; we have to be better at managing that period and stop turning the ball over.

"It's brutal, professional sport, because if you get 5% wrong, it's gone. We probably believed the hype from the first week too much. We can't let the noise in now.

Ireland take the win over England!#GuinnessM6N #Since1883 pic.twitter.com/O7viuGuCea

— Guinness Men's Six Nations (@SixNationsRugby) February 21, 2026

"Sorry to the fans, you have been outstanding, we have let everyone down. Apologies for that, but I promise we will make it better. We are going to go away and work as hard as we can to go away and rectify things.

"I am gutted, I wanted to win. It's tough, but that is what professional sport is, and she's a nasty mistress sometimes."

As for Ireland, they reignited their Six Nations title challenge, after beating England by 20 or more points in a men's Test at Twickenham for the first time.

And captain Caelan Doris hailed the efforts of Andy Farrell's side.

"It's an unbelievable feeling," he told ITV. "You could see and feel the greens [fans] from the anthems at the start. You could feel them all behind us, and they carried us through the whole way. It was a very enjoyable game to be a part of.

"We did what we wanted to do and get points on the board early, and you could feel the crowd growing into it with us.

"The fast start definitely helped, but there was a ferociousness about us. There were some mistakes, but we were always on the forward. It came together for us.

"Internally, there has always been belief at the core of what we are doing. We feel we have the right coaches and the right group of players."