Wild Youth crashed out of the Eurovision Song Contest in 12th place, we can reveal.
The band scored just ten points from five countries, leaving Ireland third last in the first semi-final.
Dressed in a gold-flared catsuit, lead singer Conor O’Donohoe gave a powerful performance of We Are One, with a huge display of pyrotechnics on stage.
But it failed to impress juries and they scored us just ten points.
READ MORE: Ex Ireland Eurovision finalist Ryan O'Shaughnessy says Wild Youth's song 'wasn't original enough'
We can reveal Latvia gave us one point, Malta scored us three points, Norway gave us three points, Portugal gave us two points and Switzerland scored us just one point on Tuesday night.
A disappointed Conor said hours after Wild Youth failed to qualify that Ireland were never given a chance at the song contest, which saw Sweden’s Loreen emerge as the outright winner in a nail-biting final on Saturday night.
In a now-deleted Instagram post, Conor – who stormed out of the Liverpool arena - shared his anger at EBU bosses on Tuesday night - saying Ireland is “never given a chance”.
“We did everything we could. Michael Kealy [RTE’s Eurovision Head of Delegation] was amazing,” he wrote. “But the truth is they never give Ireland a chance, sorry if we let you down. We tried our best.”
On Thursday, the band released a statement thanking everyone for their support.
Taking to Instagram on Thursday, Wild Youth penned: “We’ve taken a minute to just breath after Tuesday. But we just wanna say thank you.
“Thank you everyone who supported us, thank you to all our team. Michael, Evan, Frielo, Deirdre, Helen Mollie, Jennifer. It’s a journey we will never forget.
“The beautiful cities we played – Madrid, Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Barcelona, London, Amsterdam. Thank you for nights we won’t forget. We can’t wait to come back.
“Our family, friends, girlfriends who have been by our side through highs and lows. I’m sorry we couldn’t get through to the final. But we tried our best, thanks to the @eurovision for this opportunity.”
The band added: “We love you all. Le grá, Wild Youth.”
On Wednesday, RTE’s Eurovision Irish Head of Delegation Michael Kealy blamed RTE for being “underfunded” when selecting acts to represent us.
“One of the things I always say and I’m not going to win any popularity contest is that RTE has been chronically underfunded for decades and it shows particularly when it comes to us putting on entertainment shows.
“I think we do news and current affairs and dramas very well but when it comes to entertainment you need scale to make it look as impressive as a show you would see in other European countries.
“Our facilities in RTE aren’t sufficient for shows like that.”
But former Eurovision finalist Ryan O’Shaughnessy – who was the last to qualify for Ireland in 2018 – said he thought the band’s song wasn’t original enough.
Speaking exclusively to us, he said: “Yeah, I was shocked to a certain degree but if I’m honest what we need to do going forward, we need to think outside the box because as much of a great song as it was it was quite similar to a song that was out a couple of years ago.
"A song that U2 performed in 2020. But it just, for me, didn’t seem like something that was completely original and I think that is what we need to be doing for Eurovision going forward.
“You need to have a very very original song, something that hasn’t been done and it’s hard to do, but with enough hard work and enough people on the team, it’s possible.”
But he admitted that Wild Youth faced a tough semi-final.
“I thought it was a really tough semi-final to be honest. There were a lot of good acts, a lot of big songs and a lot of big productions.
“I think the lads did a great job in all fairness to them. It was a good song, it was a powerful performance, they’re a good band. It’s just a hard one to get out of and we haven’t been able to get out of it in six years now."
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