As he reflected on masterminding a record Irish win over Wales, and with it a man-of-the-match display, typical of the man, David Humphreys immediately had a generous word for the player he replaced, Ronan O'Gara.

"It's easy whenever the pack plays that well. As an outhalf when you're trying to play a certain game it's easy to get into positions. Talking to Ronan after the Scottish game, he was under so much pressure because the pack weren't able to get the dominance they had today and it worked well for us today."

Modesty, as usual, prevents the ever-polite Humphreys from seeking or basking in any personal glory so it was left to the assistant coach Eddie O'Sullivan to hand out the bouquets.

"He kept the Welsh midfield guessing and occasionally when it looked like we were going to bash it up the middle we went around the corners and I think he kept the Welsh midfield at sixes and sevens.

"That was the platform for the gainlines we got and those good gainlines mean you can run off them again and break up their defence even more. It's the kind of game we've been trying to play for the last 18 months and we tried to get back to it again today."

Humphreys could even afford to laugh off the drop goal which Jonathan Kaplan ruled out. "Personally, I thought it was over as well. It may have gone over slightly inside the top of the posts but yeah we all thought it was over. Some of them you get, some of them you don't get. In the end, thankfully, it didn't matter."

Interestingly, Humphreys referred to the calm Munster heads who had "tied down" so many games in the last few seasons before observing: "I think in any international game there's always going to be periods when you're not dominant and that's what happened at the start of the second half. But we kept saying 'stick with it, keep tackling, forget the ball and let's play some territory', and we kept doing what we said we were going to do."

Word has been spreading through the grapevine in Irish rugby that David Wallace is the hardest man to tackle even in training. Basically, there isn't exactly a queue for the task. "As I said to the boys in there (dressing-room) when Ulster play Munster I tell you what, I'll not be in the position to tackle him," laughed Humphreys.

"He (Wallace) was awesome today, and as an outhalf to have someone to offload the ball to in any sort of situation and he's guaranteed to make yardage, it does make it very easy to sit back and to play the territory game we were trying to play."

Aside from the "patience" mantra which was regularly repeated at huddle time, during the interval the Irish forwards expressed the view that the Welsh forwards were already struggling with the pace of what had been a lung-busting start to the game. Given time, this would tell and the scores would come.

Sure enough, after admittedly an unnervingly edgy third quarter, the belated flurry of three tries was in large part a reflection of the first period.

Denis Hickie conceded that at half-time there had been a certain amount of frustration over a mere 15-3 lead, but the virtues of patience were hammered home again. "That's what we didn't do against Scotland. We didn't have any patience, we were trying to score as soon as we had the ball and as a result made fools of ourselves, whereas this week we had that patience.

"It was so hot out there, and we had a lot of the ball, so we knew that if we kept that pressure until the end of the second half, then we'd get some scores and that's what happened. That's what usually happens in games anyway, if you get on top you can't lose heart if you don't have a huge advantage at the end of the first half, because the end of the first half isn't when games are going to be won and lost anyhow."

Invariably there will be a tortuous post-mortem in Wales to what was a truly lamentable performance which is liable to strengthen the view that Ireland ought to be their role model of sorts. How times change.

Graham Henry will come under increasing fire although, ironically, as his contract lasts until the 2003 World Cup and is also, with an estimated £250,000 per annum salary, two or three times what Gatland earns, he is reckoned to be comparatively impregnable.

Even so, after a display that Barry John described as the "the most disorganised, worst and downright inept performance I have seen from a Welsh team," in 29 years, Henry was obliged to accept culpability.

"I know that there will be pressure on me after the performance and I take full responsibility for what happened. We are all in the same boat but the person who carries the can is me and I have to make sure that we are doing things right."