England’s Six Nations hopes are in tatters and head coach Steve Borthwick has threatened to make changes with trips to Italy and France to come.
Andy Farrell’s men were 22-0 ahead within 30 minutes and England could not get in the game, in a replay of their Edinburgh nightmare seven days earlier.
Genge said: “Sorry to the fans, you have been outstanding, we have let everyone down, apologies for that, but I promise we will make it better.
Scar tissue
“What do you do? Two weeks in a row, conceding so many points in the first 15 minutes. After that, 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.”
The prop added: “Professional sport is brutal, because if you get five per cent wrong, it’s gone.
“We probably believed the hype from the first week too much. We can’t let the noise in now.
“I am gutted, I wanted to win. It’s tough, but that is what professional sport is and she’s a nasty mistress sometimes.”
Mountain to climb
With the in-form Italians and tournament favourites France to come for England, Borthwick admitted: “Unfortunately for two weeks now we have given ourselves a mountain to climb, given the opposition too many points and we have not got scoreboard presence.
“We will be looking closely at that and how I set the team up to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“Against New Zealand here in November, we went 12-0 down and what did the players do? They responded brilliantly and found a way, reeled the opposition in.
“Unfortunately, we have conceded too many scores in that first period and given ourselves too much to do.”
Skipper Maro Itoje, who had his 100th England cap celebration ruined by the rout, insisted it is up to the players to sort things out.
He said: “As players, we have to own it. It wasn’t the result or performance we wanted, and as players, we have to take responsibility and make sure we’re better.
“We know this is not good enough. In the first half, we handed the ball over too much and when we did get into positions to hurt Ireland, we were not accurate and then gave ourselves a mountain to climb.”
Ferociousness
Ireland captain Caelan Doris said: “It’s an unbelievable feeling. 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.
“You could feel the crowd growing into it with us. The fast start definitely helped, but there was a ferociousness about us; there was some mistakes, but we were always on the forward. It came together for us.”
Jamison Gibson-Park said: “I count myself lucky to be part of this team and it was unbelievable to be out here today. It’s difficult to come to Twickenham and do what we did.”
And jubilant Irish boss Farrell added: “It looked like we were hunting people down through the game. It is a special day to come here and perform like that.”
