Lucy Bronze was the last player to leave De Grolsch Veste on Thursday night and, as she patiently fulfilled every request for her time, one wondered how she found the energy. The willingness of this England team to front up en masse after setbacks puts certain others that wear the same badge to shame but the tireless Bronze, who was among the few to stand out in the desolating 3-0 defeat to Holland, cut the most bullish figure of all.

While many of her team-mates remarked on the need for rest and reflection to salve the wounds, the Manchester City defender gave the impression that only the waiting bus was preventing her from getting back out on to the pitch and finding her own cure. “I didn’t think I could be any more determined after what happened at the World Cup [when England also lost in the semi-finals] but with what has happened and what we have been through at this tournament, I am,” she said. “It was a stab in the heart – tournaments don’t come around too often and I’m not getting any younger.”

Anger was driving Bronze too. She is a gifted attacking right-back who would almost certainly be at ease anywhere on the pitch; England relied frequently on her initiative and, at 2-0 down with 17 minutes to play, one characteristic foray brought an appeal for a penalty after a tackle by Sherida Spitse. Nothing was given, the referee Stéphanie Frappart probably deeming Bronze had gone down before the challenge was made, but she had also been close at hand when Ellen White was denied a first-half spot-kick and said those incidents had contributed to England’s defeat.

“The crowd played a huge part and a lot of decisions went against us at key points – crucial, game-changing decisions,” she said. “If we had got one of the penalties it would have silenced the crowd and given us a chance of equalising at the end. I’ve watched them back and I can’t see how at least one wasn’t given. On my one, I even said to the referee: ‘If you think I went down too early, the girl was steaming in, I’ve got to protect myself, so if you think I’ve dived give me a yellow card.’ There was no yellow card, she didn’t make a decision. It’s either a penalty or a yellow card. In my eyes, something wasn’t right there.”

Bronze also felt Holland were “good at breaking things up and knowing the ref wasn’t seeing it, so continuously doing it”. The officials’ inactivity was an underlying theme broached by several England players but it was Bronze who articulated it the most stridently and perhaps her frustration owed in part to that nagging concern over the advance of time. At 25, she is playing the best football of her career.

“I’m certainly not old, not yet, but we will keep knocking on the door,” she said. Bronze’s powers are unlikely to start declining for a few years but England had felt Euro 2017 was there to be won and it is unlikely rivals such as France and Germany, both well below par this summer, will not come back strongly when the former host the 2019 World Cup.

“The team is in a good place,” she said. “We’ll be fighting fit, ready for the next tournament. We’ve got a good core of players who will still be around and we’ve got some good young players coming through. I think we’re all more determined than ever to get to the World Cup final, that’s the aim.”

Bronze will certainly have earned senior player status by then and England will hope to have learned their lessons. “We did everything we could but unfortunately some things are taken out of your hands,” she said. In truth they had been well beaten but perhaps, after such a humbling night, the fire that still raged in Bronze’s eyes will be a light to guide them.