LEST THE younger members of the French squad forget, a giant statue of the World Cup sits in front of the media centre at Clairefontaine, headquarters of the national football association and the academy that has nurtured and developed a wealth of French talent for 20 years.

One former pupil, Nicolas Anelka, stole a glance at the trophy as he ambled in to his appointment with the press yesterday evening, the squad having returned from Dublin to its base 35 miles south-west of Paris.

Last week the Chelsea striker wondered aloud if his own participation in a World Cup finals “just wasn’t meant to be”, after missing out on the last three, but his goal in Croke Park seemed to have lifted his mood. A bit.

You showed a lot of joy after scoring the goal?

“Well, it was pretty important, wasn’t it?”

You had a bit of luck, with the deflection?

“My goal was a good goal and they all count,” he didn’t smile. ”I saw there wasn’t much on, so I decided to shoot. It took a deflection, yes. All the better.

“We know we didn’t play well in the first half, but you can’t always play great halves, you can’t always score five goals. We were able to analyse the game at half-time and think about what we had to do. We know how much there is at stake, no one needs to tell us, we want to go to the World Cup. So, we knew we had to change something, we had to start playing like we have been recently. And we did.”

There were no heartfelt tributes from Anelka to Raymond Domenechs tactical genius, though – but at least he didn’t echo his former French team-mate Robert Pires’s declaration before the game that the manager is “a chicken s***” without a personality.

Nor did he support the notion expressed on the front page of L’Equipe yesterday: “The hardest part is done.”

“Well, if we concede then the hardest part is not done,” he said. “We have to avoid conceding free-kicks, that is where they can be dangerous, we know that.”

He added: “We must play to win. Only then can we play freely, play our natural game. So, no, we must not just defend and try to hold on to the lead, that is how we will cause ourselves problems, that is how we will put ourselves in danger.”

Ireland were tough opponents?

“Yes, but we won in Dublin because we were the better team. Yes, Ireland had chances, but we could have won by more. We should have won by more.

“They made it hard for us in the first half but myself and Thierry (Henry) started out as wingers and saw nothing of the ball.

“There were no instructions, but it would have been stupid if we stayed in those positions, so we decided to move, to play a little deeper.

“You always have a feel for what is happening on the pitch, you know what you have to do, by instinct almost. Slowly we got more in the game and gained control. In the second half we were on top.”

The deflection off Seán St Ledger didn’t, need it be said, lessen his enjoyment of his goal.

“It was like, I don’t know, deliverance. It was the moment we wanted, the moment we had been waiting for. We all felt great joy and great relief.

“On Wednesday we need to score again, as quickly as possible, to put ourselves in the clear. It is not over, though.”

Off he went, passing the giant World Cup again on his way. Lest he forget.