Republic of Ireland captain Katie McCabe pulled no punches as she acknowledged an "unacceptable" display in the chastening 4-0 defeat to Slovenia in the UEFA Women's Nations League.
The Girls in Green failed to build on last Friday's 1-0 win over Turkey in Tallaght as Carla Ward's side found themselves three goals down by half-time in Koper.
While the collective performance improved somewhat in the second half, there was little indication of a comeback as Slovenia added another goal without response.
McCabe, who started in midfield before shifting back to a more familiar left-back berth after half-time, said the players would take responsibility for the turn of events on Tuesday evening.
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"We can't start games like that. We always know it's going to be difficult to come to these types of places playing away from home
"But we need to have a look at ourselves. We'll obviously go back to the drawing board and look to see where we can improve.
"The goals were completely avoidable. We gifted them their chances and yeah, we need to be better."
McCabe acknowledged that with the current change of system at the start of a new era, "hiccups like this" would be a natural consequence of learning to play in a more assertive manner with the ball.
"We just weren't clean enough in our turnovers as well. We gave them too much space and we're going to be chasing them in the group now, but as I said, we'll have to go back and reflect and look to do better going into the double-header against Greece."
Ireland's preparations were disrupted minutes before kick-off when defender Megan Campbell was forced to withdraw after sustaining a tight hamstring during the warm-up, with Megan Connolly drafted in to start as a result.
McCabe felt Connolly did "a great job" in the circumstances, while she was not perturbed by her own switching of roles midway through to slot onto the left edge of the back four.
"Any job the manager asks me to do, I'm going to do it, whether that's playing higher up, in the full-back areas. Everyone knows me, I'll play anywhere," she said.
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For her part, Connolly (above) insisted she was "ready to go in" and that "every player preps as if they're going to start" before dismissing the notion that new manager Ward's more attacking approach had led to the humbling result.
"We started too slow, and that's on us as players," said the Lazio defender/midfielder.
"We were prepped coming into the game. We had a good week's training, we felt good. And we concede three poor goals in the first half. There are no excuses. It's not good enough.
"I think the goals we conceded isn't down to a new system or a new philosophy. It's down to poor decisions from us and poor goals to concede. You can play any formation you want, but if you're not doing the fundamentals right, then you're going to concede goals and you're going to put yourself in trouble. And that's what we've done in the first half.
"We got better in the second half. I think there were a lot of good things that we've done attacking wise. We still conceded a goal, which is quite frustrating and we didn't put any in the back of the net, which is difficult as well. But there's no issue with a new system or anything.
"We said going into the first game of the campaign [against Turkey], new coaches, new everything. That was kind of on the first game and we got a result in that. Now there are no excuses for this performance."
