Johnny Sexton may have looked crestfallen when forced to go off early in the second-half but was understandably content after the 32-19 win which derailed the Grand Slam champions in one of the truly great Irish performances.
“It was an incredible game, wasn’t it,” Sexton smiled afterwards. “It felt like we were on the up after getting that try and then suddenly they open up. They can come alive can’t they? That’s what we spoke about.
“Even though we won and got five points in the end, it still didn’t feel very comfortable. At the end, (Antoine) Dupont getting away, he’s a remarkable player. You have to be alive to hold on to him, but look, we concentrated on last week for the two weeks in Portugal.
“Then we concentrated on this week and we knew we had to be across it in terms of the Championship and now we have got to decompress, take a few days off and come back.
But, with the round three game against Italy in the Stadio Olimpico a fortnight hence in mind, Sexton also added: “It’s not worth anything if we let it slip now against Italy in the next game. We have two weeks to prepare for that now and we need to be on top of our game going over there.”
[ Did the gap between France and Ireland just get wider?Opens in new window ]
Inevitably, Ireland will be even firmer favourites now to lift a first Six Nations and even a Grand Slam title since 2018.
“It’s been clear from the start, what we want to achieve,” Sexton maintained. “It goes unsaid but everyone knows what we want to do. We won a Triple Crown last year but we want to go better this year.
“That’s what we speak about, to keep going on a trajectory like this as opposed to 2019 when we dipped. So, to get better is to win a Championship or a Grand Slam.
“How you do that is by concentrating on the next two weeks and try beat Italy away. We obviously saw the game last week, how tough it was for France.”
Murray was partnering Conor Murray for a 67th time at Test level, a half-back partnership second only to the George Gregan-Stephen Larkham alliance for the Wallabies.
Murray played in the week where his father Gerry serious head injuries after a collision on his bike with a lorry, and Sexton said of his half-back partner: “It’s unbelievable really, isn’t it.
“It’s a mark of the character of a player, who in my eyes, has always been a class operator. He’s always been world-class in his position. He changed the game, in many ways, for scrum-halves.
“It’s amazing really that he could show up today and be so calm, and put in the performance that he did.”
On the injury which forced his departure, Sexton explained: “(Uni) Atonio tackles me and landed on my groin.”
Andy Farrell interjected and said: “That will do it!”
“Yeah, it was another impact (injury) and I couldn’t run it off,” added Sexton. “I was gutted to come off, I was enjoying it. It felt good.”
Asked what won the game for his side, Farrell said, with palpable pride: “The character. You talk about the bigger picture stuff. The fight, the want to cover each other’s back, to show the togetherness and spirit that we know we’ve got. To show it to everyone else in world rugby was there to be seen.
“You could talk for hours in that regard of instances of people playing too much rugby and coming back and putting in performances like that in big games when the chips are down. It shows a lot of character.”
[ Ireland v France Talking Point: Herring hit a blatant red cardOpens in new window ]
Farrell confirmed that Rob Herring was going through his HIA protocols, which rather called into question Wayne Barnes’ assertion that “there was not a high degree of danger” in the hit by Antonio which led to him issuing a yellow rather than red card.
“The referees are paid to make those decisions,” said Farrell. “I mean Wayne and the team of four, the TMO, they couldn’t get any closer to the big screen to see it as it was so you’ve got to trust that call and obviously they’ll look at it and do the right thing therefore after that.”
Inevitably, such a punishing game did not come without a cost, and in particularly Tadhg Beirne looked in clear pain when departing with a leg injury.
“It’s not looking too great at this moment in time,” admitted Farrell. “I think there’s something that needs to be looked at in more detail. It’s not looking great for him, but we’ll see tomorrow.”
