RWC 2015 - Jamie Roberts: The pain of defeat is still raw but we can take heart from doing Wales proud

COLUMN: 'I’m still as gutted as when we left the field after being knocked out by Australia last weekend'

Wales fly-half Dan Biggar holds his head after being injured in a tackle (Getty Images)

The sensation of being out of the Rugby World Cup is a strange one right now. One minute you are in the midst of it, caught in this bubble that’s all-engulfing and then, bam, you’re out of the tournament and the next thing you know you are back at home twiddling your thumbs.

I’m still gutted and the body’s sore but that’s the nature of rugby and, at some point, you have to move on – but just not quite yet.

You can find yourself stuck thinking of particular moments; the passage of play when Australia were down to 13 men in our final pool game and somehow we did not make it over their try line; or else that scrum against South Africa... we defended wonderfully for 75 minutes against the Springboks but switched off for just a second and that’s all that they needed to pounce.

The changing room afterwards was a quiet place as it’s difficult to find the right words when everyone’s so desperately disappointed. We’d had a shot at glory but it was taken away from us after we had worked so unbelievably hard for months.

But all the other beaten teams in the quarter-finals have the same sensation and we have to be mature enough to understand that that’s the nature of rugby.

It’d be easy for us to point the finger in the aftermath to all the injuries but that happened, we’ve never dwelt on it, and never used it as an excuse. And anyway we still had a chance to make it to a second successive World Cup semi-final.

The one consolation for me has been the reaction back in Wales. Every single player in our squad is immensely proud to pull on a Wales jersey in every single Test.

We fought as best we could to the final whistle of that quarter-final and I think the wider public accept that. We’ve had a lot of messages from people telling us how proud they were of us fighting to the very end and that has been quite overwhelming really. To have done your country proud is perhaps the ultimate consolation.

How does the heartache compare to 2011? It’s difficult to judge, really, the emotion feels different but it’s still painful to lose by a couple of points, with it all resting on no more than one or two key moments.

The great hemisphere divide

To lose a game of the magnitude of the quarter-final really hurts and it is a common theme that we’ve lost to the southern hemisphere nations again.

It has thrown up the broader issue of the hemisphere divide, with four southern sides making up the semi-finalists. Had the bounce of a ball gone differently for us against South Africa and, likewise, Scotland against Australia, we would not be having this discussion.

So it’s an easy statement to make that southern hemisphere rugby is on a different level to the game in the north.

Do northern hemisphere sides need to change the way they play to win World Cups? I don’t know. I think the different style of play is partly down to the differing weather – it has a huge part in the way you play.

Take domestic rugby in the north, it can be very attack-minded and expansive in the Premiership or Pro12 compared perhaps to the more attritional nature of Six Nations rugby.

The big difference between the hemispheres is that southern hemisphere sides don’t seem to come off the line. If you look at the way we played against Australia, we stifled their attacking rugby with the way we defended.

We came hard off the line and tried to shut off the play. Attacking rugby is completely different, and that’s the key difference.

Why Gatland’s staying put

Warren Gatland has done an amazing job with the boys and there’s a great familiarity there now. He’s developed good relationships with the players and people respect him and what he brings to the table.

The players really enjoy playing for him and he’d be as disappointed as any of us in the aftermath of that Springboks game.

I know there are people who have linked him with the England job but I don’t think he’ll be going to England, particularly as he’s got a contract with Wales that stretches until 2019.

As for Shaun Edwards and Rob Howley, I know their contracts are coming to an end but, hopefully, the coaching team remains the same for Wales.

I’ve been very lucky in my career to have a settled coaching set-up. Rob was just earning his coaching spurs at the Cardiff Blues when I came through and he and Shaun are all I’ve ever known in the international set-up.

Shaun has brought the best out of me as a player and a person, and anyone can see how crucial he’s been to us as a defensive unit, while Rob is someone I look up to massively and who has helped guide my career for over a decade.

Brutal for Scotland

I tweeted one word after Scotland’s narrow defeat to Australia: brutal. I felt for the Scottish lads who’d given everything and have clearly come such a long way under Vern Cotter.

Personally, I think the referee Craig Joubert has come in for a lot of stick and it’s all too easy to point the finger. He’s made a decision in real time and, when I watched the game, my instant reaction was that it was a penalty. You watch it back on replay and you see things differently, obviously.

If you were to go through every ruck and tackle in slow motion you’d probably find that referees maybe get a third of decisions wrong. That’s just the nature of officiating and he didn’t have the right to go to the TMO in this instance – those are the rules.

Human error happens, the only cruelty was that it was the biggest decision of all, and that’s heartbreaking.

For Scotland, the one consolation is that they will be a formidable threat in the next Six Nations.

The All Blacks to win it

I had toyed with not watching the semi-finals or the rest of the World Cup for that matter. It’s that painful knowing that we could, perhaps should, have still been in the tournament.

But my love of rugby as a whole just about outweighs the heartache and I’ll be settling down to watch both games this weekend.

If I had to pick a team to win, it would have to be New Zealand. They’re just the complete team from one to 15 and they’ve got an amazing amount of experience in that team.

Saying that, it’s not a done deal. I know how tough South Africa are as opponents and I wouldn’t put it past the Springboks to halt the All Blacks in their tracks this weekend.