Six Nations Diary/Ronan O'Gara: The Grand Slam is gone and that was our stated intention. You've many lows and many highs in this game, as I know personally. Going back to work on Monday, the most important game is the next one. It's very disappointing to lose but it's important to win next Saturday now.

We were simply too much off the pace in the first half and we paid the price. I was always wary of the French. They've quality throughout their side, they ripped us apart in the first 40 minutes and I thought we did well to get back into the game at that stage but the damage was done in the first half. You can't afford to concede two tries like that.

We generally try to play with the wind in the second half but they won the toss. Having said that, the tone of the game was set in the first play from a deep kick-off when they just set a maul going. I think it was four minutes before we had any bit of possession, which itself was a turnover.

Forty minutes' use of the wind might seem like a long time, but you've got to make it count. We were going all right for a time and I think everybody's mindset was that we'd kick for territory but we just never got the ball in hand to run at them.

The passage of play to our first penalty, when we got Maggsy setting a good target for them, and then got Paulie and Axel running at them, was what we wanted to do. And that's because we were in their attacking zone. Early on you need to get the forwards into the game running at them.

But we had few other opportunities to do that in the first half and the two tries hurt us big time. I just couldn't get across quickly enough to catch their blindside winger for the first one. The second one came from a turnover off one of our lineouts - they pushed it through the hands and Baby showed amazing pace to get through. We didn't seem to get our line set right.

Fellas were p***ed off, obviously, at that stage and word had come in that we had to get a score before half-time but we didn't. We let them get nine points ahead yet we were only two points behind going into the last few minutes, so giving them that start was the annoying thing.

Because kicking the ball into that wind in the second half wasn't going to be very productive we had to run at them, and that helped us to pick up our intensity. We did all right at times and it was a pity we didn't play like that in the first half. But, sure, hindsight is a great thing.

Our try gave us a lifeline and that was Drico at his best. It was outstanding. We needed a bit of magic from somewhere and he provided it.

Everyone knows my opinions on him. We saw Michalak coming on all right but it was also the first time there weren't four people watching the inside channel.

We mainly operated off static ball, which is very difficult, even with targeted runners off you. That was good lineout ball off the top and I got a nice ball in front of me to attack the line and hit Drico, who was one-on-one with Michalak and he did what he does to anyone in that kind of space, and the finishing was brilliant as well.

Naturally, I was thinking "if we can just get down there into drop-goal territory . . ." But, frustratingly, they got down into our territory and I thought they marked Geordan very well defensively, and cut off his kicking options.

People will no doubt wonder if we can pick ourselves up now but I don't think that will be a problem. But even when you're winning all the time you can't ever rest on your laurels, and when you're down you have to respond. I think this team is mentally very strong so it's important to show what we're made of next weekend.

We're obviously all completely gutted to lose this game and it will be a while before it sinks in, I would think, but there's so much pride in wearing this jersey. Also, there's no shame in winning four out of five. It was good that we were talking about Grand Slams, but France are a good side and I think anyone who knows their rugby will appreciate that.

We're very disappointed to lose at home. We haven't done that in a long, long time but at the same time it's a good challenge this week to see if we can bounce back, rather than feeling sorry for ourselves. I don't expect that at all from any of the players or the management, because fellas enjoy this camp and there's a big prize at stake next Saturday. We never got ahead of ourselves and there's still so much to take out of this season, so let's not start sulking now. That's the most important thing.