RUGBY/Six Nations: About 65 minutes into the game there was an interlude to Ireland's frenetic, 28-point salvo close to the French line. The Fields of Athenry began slowly echoing around the largely somnolent Stade de France, even prompting rare chants of Allez Les Bleus.
The game resumed with a French scrum and Frederic Michalak slicing his kick into touch. For the first time all afternoon, you got a taste of what might have been an exceptional contest.
Two tries later, with Ireland back to within two scores, the feeling had been reinforced by an eye-popping endgame after the initial anti-climax, if that doesn't sound too Irish. That Ireland had 10 minutes to score two more tries and complete the most remarkable comeback in the history of Test rugby, from a 40-point deficit (equalling Ireland's record defeat at that point) away to France, was even more unreal than much of what happened before.
The match stats were simply extraordinary. The penalties were almost three to one, the territory two to one, the possession not far off that - all to the team which lost 43-31.
Ireland completed well over twice as many passes; made more line-breaks, 20 to six; forced France to make 148 tackles to Ireland's 35; and there were 21 missed tackles to seven. Ireland won it everywhere except one place.
Bizarre stuff, and all the clichés abounded. A game of two halves. France took their foot off the pedal. Ireland played all the rugby. So many theories and opinions.
Somewhere in this maelstrom of views lies the truth, although we'll never really know.
And how much of the turnaround in the last 30 minutes was down to the Irish players simply tearing up the gameplan and playing heads-up rugby from a virtual no-win position, having been very much authors of their own defeat through a flawed strategy as well as mistakes? The game having been lost, in a sense they had nothing else left to lose.
Joe Maso made an interesting observation when commenting that in the last half-hour "Ireland played without fear".
Which, of course, might prompt the question, why they were initially playing with too much fear?
To many a wise coach or former player out there, as Jonathan Davies maintained, France did indeed take their foot off the pedal. It's hard to believe a more ruthless side, a la the All Blacks or England, wouldn't have kept the foot down. If not quite on the scale of the late Mick Doyle's comment that Ireland "won the second half" in a losing World Cup quarter-final to Australia in 1987, there is a bit of a pattern here.
Indeed, most pertinently, in the 2003 World Cup quarter-final Ireland were 37-0 down to France after 50 minutes, and responded with three tries to earn a modicum of respectability in a 43-21 defeat.
Last year, France nearly let Ireland off the hook when they made a raft of premature replacements in Dublin, notably taking off Fabien Pelous and Yann Delaigue. Trailing 29-6 against Wales last season, Ireland came back to lose 32-20.
In these and other instances, Ireland have played some great stuff when the game's been up, but those who ignore history are apt to repeat it.
The squad remain in camp until Wednesday, mostly focusing on analysis and rehab, before coming together again next Sunday night.
In addition to Saturday's 22, Marcus Horan, Mick O'Driscoll, Anthony Foley, Neil Best, Denis Hickie, Girvan Dempsey and Barry Murphy have again been called into the squad, as has Ulster lock Matt McCullough. John Kelly is ruled out through injury.
Changes for the Welsh game on Sunday week? Marcus Horan will return, and Andrew Trimble, though nominally a centre, might well start on the left wing ahead of Tommy Bowe; Trimble seems to be playing with more confidence.
Donncha O'Callaghan is pressing Malcolm O'Kelly, but arguments for bringing back the likes of Keith Gleeson, Anthony Foley and Jamie Heaslip, not to mention Hickie - and for picking a bench with more experience and more obvious impact potential - will probably be rejected.
O'Sullivan confirmed Brian O'Driscoll is unscathed, though Paul O'Connell is a genuine worry.
"He took a heavy knock on the shoulder and played on with it, and he was in a fair bit of discomfort last night and we'll have to have a scan today when we get back to Dublin. We don't know the extent of the damage as of yet, but I have to say we are concerned about it."
In the aftermath of Saturday's match, the Irish head coach was at a loss to explain what one French journalist suggested was the catastrophe of the first half.
"I can't," O'Sullivan said, and yesterday he conceded five of the six tries were down to Irish errors.
"These guys play at this level all the time and they don't make these mistakes," he said, but stressed, "I'm not going to beat the guys up over those mistakes, because they tend not to make that many mistakes. I don't know if we played that badly in the first half. Some of the rugby we played, not just in the second half but in the first half, was very good."
O'Sullivan was annoyed by the suggestion the Irish tries were catch-up tries. "I would have been happier scoring the tries in the first half rather than the second, yes, but was there something wrong with the tries in the second half? I agree we threw some ball on the ground in the first half. Absolutely, no problem with that."
Disagreeing that it had become a different type of match in the last half-hour, O'Sullivan maintained the key difference was that "we just held on to the ball. In the second half we played the game that we were trying to play in the first half. And the French struggled when we took them through phases, and we got the mismatches we wanted. So the term 'catch-up-rugby try' is where I'm lost - it was just good rugby."
Pity so much damage had been done by then though.
