O'Sullivan points to positives

Reaction: The French are hosting the next World Cup in under four years' time though they're hardly in the mode or the mood for it.

It will come as no surprise to Irish tourists to Paris to learn that there was no attempt to provide an English translator for the French press conference (nor indeed a French translator for Ireland's).

Toward the end of the post-match briefing one of the Irish press corps, who may as well have been in Mars up until this point, asked, in English, for Bernard Laporte's verdict on the Irish display.

In fact, Ireland's performance had just been addressed in French, before this slightly sneering response gave way to a moderately more considered one. "Very aggressive." Pause. "Good lineout." Pause for translation again. "Good maul," added Joe Maso. "Ronan O'Gara good kick," observed Laporte, straining to add: "It's a good side." Hmmm.

With the help of one of the men from L'Equipe, it transpired Laporte had said a good deal more in his native tongue.

Ireland's continuity had been good, he said, but "the problem with the Irish is that they are technically very good and their intentions are good but they don't make them materialise".

As for his own side, Laporte admitted there was "a lot more to work on", though he extolled much of the French performance, particularly Fabien Pelous: "I thought he had a great game," Laporte said of his captain.

"I am quite satisfied with the state of mind and the spirit. We never panicked in the periods when Ireland were dominating us with the driving maul. The defence was perfect. We had too many knock-ons in the first half, but in the second half we were far better in conserving the ball."

As Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan saw it, the glass was half-full rather than half-empty.

"In fairness to Paul (O'Connell) and the other senior players, when the game looked like it might slip away from us and we might get into a right pickle, we didn't panic and kept the pressure on the French right the way through. And that takes a bit of doing. We rallied very well, particularly in the last quarter."

Discussing Ireland's aggressive rolling maul, O'Sullivan said that when it didn't yield a breakthrough, "we had to change the point of attack and I thought we did mix it well in the first half because we went up the guts of them and we went wide at the outside channels because they are very strong up the middle, and it paid very good dividends. We did maul very well but they were very good at giving away penalties at the right time.

"I'm happy enough that we stuck to our task and stuck to our game plan," ventured O'Sullivan, who put the display well above the thrashings here two years ago and in last November's World Cup quarter-final.

Paul O'Connell said he "really enjoyed" his baptism as captain. "I think it worked well. A lot of guys used to sit back and let Woody do the job all the time."

A shaft of light was provided by Gordon D'Arcy's performance. It's great to see such an engaging young fellow and something of a slightly tortured talent finally fulfilling his potential.

His enthusiasm is in marked contrast to some of his stale-looking team-mates, and his demeanour afterwards was in keeping with that.

En route to the ground he revealed: "For about 30 seconds when we were driving here I was thinking 'where the hell is the stadium?' They were blocking all the roads and thought 'I should be able to see it by now'. Then we turned the corner and I looked up. 'Oh my God, look at the size of this place.' But that was it, I stood beside Mal, and after that I wanted the ball as early as possible and that got me into the game from then."

His championship debut may have been "a significant step up", and though he was reluctant to extol his own performance, he came away from the day convinced Ireland might have won.

"We were almost there. For 80 minutes of that game, we were in it and we fell asleep for 10 minutes in both periods, and France punished us. So I'd take a lot of heart from most of the game. We'll take positives from it as well. It's not all doom and gloom."