Ireland captain Johnny Sexton has admitted his poor individual display against England has been playing on his mind for the past eight months.
After opening their 2020 account with two wins, Ireland were well beaten at Twickenham in their final game before the Six Nations was suspended.
"It hurts more when you're captain because you're the guy that's meant to be leading by example and putting in the performance that shows the way," Sexton said.
"If you don't do that it can be a hard place to stand and talk."
While Sexton was to many the obvious choice to replace Rory Best as captain following the Ulster hooker's retirement last year, head coach Andy Farrell has said the position will be reviewed at the end of every campaign.
With the pandemic abruptly halting Farrell's first tournament as head coach after just three games, the captaincy was reviewed and Sexton was selected to continue the responsibility.
"It's always a privilege and honour to do it, and when he asked me to do it again I was delighted," Sexton said.
"I wanted to make sure that the guys thought I did a good job in the Six Nations and I asked for feedback around that. It was a good and bad time for the Six Nations to finish up for me.
"Obviously on a bad personal performance against England, so not a good headspace to be in for a long time waiting for your next game but it gave me a good chance to reflect on the leadership stuff and searching for that feedback on what I could do better, what I did well, what I didn't do so well.
"We worked hard as a leadership group over the time with Zoom calls, with different teams and different people to try and improve ourselves as a group so the time was brilliant for that."
Criticism an unavoidable part of captaincy
With 91 caps Sexton has been a senior figure in the Ireland camp for some time, only prop Cian Healy (98) has made more appearances in the current squad.
However despite a longstanding leadership role, Sexton only captained his country from the start for the first time last year, in a World Cup group stage victory over Russia.
The 35-year-old opened his home account as skipper with wins over Scotland and Wales in February, and cited the victories as useful experiences in understanding which opinions to take into account when making decisions.
"There are some things that you might get criticism for. Even when you get things right, you make a decision whether it's going for the corner or going for the posts, we made some bold decisions especially in that Welsh game and we came away with tries," he said.
"But your decisions are still being criticised by guys who previously played the game, that would have gone a different way even though your decision was vindicated by getting the try the going and getting the bonus-point which could prove to be very important.
"It's just about keeping in-house, looking for the opinions that matter which is the coaches and the other guys in the leadership group."
Having recovered from a minor hamstring injury Sexton is expected to be named in Ireland's team to face Italy when it is announced on Wednesday.
Ireland can win the tournament by securing bonus-point victories this weekend in Dublin and again a week later against France in Paris.