I WAS absolutely devastated when the final whistle went at the Madejski Stadium. That’s as bad a defeat as I have experienced for a long time. I was literally sick to the stomach.

Having the Scarlets leave with the points was a real kick in the teeth after what we had achieved at the RDS the previous weekend against Leinster.

We had spoken in the build-up about the importance of ensuring the same mental and physical application we demonstrated in Dublin and the fact we couldn’t take anything for granted. I don’t believe we underestimated the Scarlets, rather it was a case of coming nowhere near that edge we had for the Leinster match. The successful sides in Europe maintain consistency of performance.

We started promisingly and took an 8-0 lead but immediately the errors crept into our patterns, the first costly one when we butchered a restart reception. They went down the pitch and made it 8-7 and the early momentum was gone.

We definitely missed Steffon Armitage and his abrasiveness and ball-pinching qualities at the breakdown. It’s not an excuse or a reflection on any other players. He’s just so effective and it’s only when he’s not there you realise how much work he gets through.

We couldn’t hold on to the ball for more than a phase or two before coughing it up, in complete contrast to the Leinster game when we guarded possession zealously.

I have to give the Scarlets credit because they have engineered successive victories in the Heineken Cup coming off some indifferent form in the Magners. This was the first time this season they had a full side and on the day they probably deserved to win. They have a very good backrow, including the ageless Simon Easterby, a fine young fullback and in captain Mark Jones a guy who knows the way to the try line.

Stephen Jones kicked all around him and crucially the Scarlets kept going right to the end. When Sailosi Tagicakibau grabbed that interception to nudge us in front I thought we’d be able to hang on but they kept going to the final whistle.

We’ve relinquished a chance to control our own destiny in this group and given the Scarlets a huge confidence boost for the next tranche of matches in December. We can still qualify but now we have to hope Leinster travel to Wales and turn over the Scarlets.

Toby Booth doesn’t rant and rave after a match so he was very measured. He told us all to go away and by the time we return today to evaluate our individual contributions and honesty, see if we could have done more. There’ll be very few of the boys who’ll feel satisfied with their contributions.

Everything hurts more when you lose: you shower, climb into an ice bath, see the medical team and then fulfil your corporate responsibilities. By the time I got back the Scarlets had gone. I’d have liked to have had a chat with Simon Easterby but the only thing I managed on the day was a handshake at the end of the game. They celebrated the final whistle as if they had won a cup final; you couldn’t blame them.

I went to see friends in Kensington. Fortunately they still wanted to talk about the Leinster match. It reminded me of going back to London last Sunday week, following Neil O’Donovan’s wedding in Leitrim. I was sitting up the front of the plane and a couple of Leinster jersey-wearing lads stopped to thank me for ruining their weekend.

Escaping to the fairways of Foxhill Golf and Country club yesterday helped to provide an outlet for my frustrations after the Scarlets defeat, not in terms of the quality of my golf but the chance to thrash the little white ball.

London Irish’s “golfers” occasionally enjoy this beautiful facility with the blessing of the golf club, while I have negotiated my own personal relationship with Foxhill professional Roger Hyder. We agreed a little quid pro quo in that I am helping him lose weight – the golf club has a gymnasium and spa – while he is giving me golf lessons.

Our arrangement sees me take him to the gym for some supervised sessions. Now, I am no poster boy for the six pack, sculpted body but I am perfectly willing to implement a programme that sees someone else grunt and groan in pain. Roger’s lost about three kilos in the first month of our regime.

My spies at the club tell me he’s rather fond of the red wine, Jaffa Cakes – he’s a two packet a day man – and wine gums so we have had a little talk about attitude adjustment. Although he doesn’t know it, his eating habits are being monitored when I’m not there.

There is another little bit of symmetry to our relationship. At 6ft 7ins, Roger is nearly the same height so I occasionally get to use his custom fit clubs. He took one look at mine – they were given to me for my 21st by some of my rugby buddies at Blackrock – and suggested the shafts were way too pliable: fishing rods, I think, is the technical term he used.

It’s only fair to say my side of the bargain seems the easier. I desperately want to be able to play golf to a reasonable level but my ambition is certainly not matched by prowess. Up until this point I have played with a hurling grip, a legacy of my time with the Kildare under 14s and Maynooth teams. That was the first thing that had to go.

He told me being proficient would take a long time, a statement given credence by my first round after that opening lesson. I didn’t lose a ball because I didn’t hit it out of my shadow. I certainly assisted the greenkeeping staff in terms of cutting down the rough. Roger won’t let me hit anything lower than a six-iron off the fairway and a five-iron off the tee.

It takes me a couple of days to get to a par five. I was playing with some friends who were booming drives down the fairway and I was loping along playing ground hurling with my six-iron.

Even though I have a bit of a wiggle the ladies tee is not an option.

I’m going to tweak a philosophy I picked up from a former rugby team-mate Stephen Tanner. He gets married in December and his courtship basically revolved around the mantra, “persistence beats resistance”. I’m going to take that to the golf course.

It was nice to get away and keep the mind occupied for those few hours rather than too much introspection about the Scarlets game. We’ve no time to feel sorry as it’s back to the Premiership and the Leicester Tigers at the weekend: we’ll be able to gauge our bouncebackability, as someone once said.