Eddie O'Sullivan's Ireland failed to make the quarter-finals

The under-pressure boss re-iterated his stance at a farewell press conference on Monday following the 30-15 defeat to Argentina which sent Ireland home.

He said: "There is no doubt, I feel I still have the appetite for the job.

"We'll have to assess that performance. I still believe this team can return to where it was five months ago."

Interview: Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan

Ireland came into the World Cup on the back of a successful Six Nations where they narrowly missed out on winning the Championship to France.

But their World Cup campaign has failed to sparkle, with Pool defeats to Argentina and France coming amid reports of off-the-field problems for fly-half Ronan O'Gara.

606: DEBATE Give your reaction to Ireland's campaign

O'Sullivan, who agreed to sign a new four-year deal offered by the Irish Rugby Football Union before the tournament began, says he expects the IRFU to honour the deal.

"The IRFU are working on a four-year cycle and in their view they want me to take the national team forward," he said.

"That decision was made known well before the World Cup, and heading into a very difficult group and there were no guarantees that it would work out as we wanted."

We had a mountain to climb and we just couldn't scale it Eddie O'Sullivan

O'Sullivan said that his coaching team were bitterly disappointed at the outcome of the tournament.

"We are disappointed for the players as well as ourselves. We came into this tournament with high hopes and expectations as did the public," he said.

"Those expectations were well founded. We played some great rugby last year in the run-up to the tournament particularly in the Six Nations.

"Unfortunately we have not produced that form in the World Cup. It just didn't work out for us.

"Everyone knows that we were playing in the most difficult pool in the tournament. In the end we had a mountain to climb and we just couldn't scale it.

"I wouldn't use the word disaster. It's disappointing in that we know we can play better rugby than we achieved in this tournament."