Keith Duggan talks to the prop who answered the doubters

The square granite figure of the Limerick man is recognisable straight away. He emerges from the Irish dressing-room not quite blinking but definitely aware that something has changed. It all looks the same. The afternoon is failing and spitting soft rain and the rear of the stand is like a Gotham city ruin. Beneath it is the last of the milling crowd, holding plastic pints and wishing another few minutes out of the Lansdowne atmosphere. Through the people Marcus Horan ambles, easily and without ceremony. His world may have changed but he remains the same.

"Yeah, 'twas a great day all right," he grins when he is circled and nudged under the dripping awning of a white corporate marquee. Nearby, an abandoned French cockerel struts aimlessly about, uninterested in Horan's recollections.

"To win at home against France. Hopefully we can keep the wagon rolling now and have something to shout about when we come back here in a few weeks."

An hour arrived this week when Marcus Horan came to the conclusion that Saturday was not a good day to die. For his execution was heavily hinted at. Naked fears were expressed about his height, his relative lack of weight. Oh, the boy could play and he was mobile and all that, but the problem was, well, he just wasn't exactly Peter Clohessy. Wasn't even Reggie Corrigan.

"I have to admit it was a pretty tough week, just trying to stay positive and gear myself up. I would have been happy if we could have played the game on Monday morning. So it was a pretty emotional day just trying to keep a lid on the tension. And I'm happy enough with the way things went. I'll look at the video and be critical of myself. I feel I put a lot of work in at scrummage and set pieces. Obviously if people think I'm losing out on size or whatever, well I suppose they can have their opinion, they are entitled to it."

But he wasn't about to concur. It was, after all, another rugby game. It was Horan's bread and butter. When he ran out onto the field, his heart thumping, Jean Jacques Crenca and Co were not awaiting him in black hoods, standing gravely beside a guillotine. Once he had shaken hands with the President and heard the anthems, it was down to business.

"I got a few hits in early on and that settled me," he observes. "It was just a matter of taking the pressure and turning it into something positive. Our scrum went well, so I'm happy enough. I mean, it wasn't a very attractive game and we made a lot of mistakes as well, but it was a good victory and the idea of winning the championship is still there."

Horan's arrival at this point has been based on work ethic and patience. Not so long ago, he might have despaired of ever getting his ticket to an Irish front row that was for so long a house of legends. Years ago, he sat in a back seat on the way to boys' training at Shannon with Keith Wood. As a young man, he apprenticed under the glowering stewardship of Peter Clohessy, still the stuff of bad dreams in France; big, demanding and charismatic figures who looked as if they would play forever.

Marcus will be a quieter sort of hero. He worked and waited for the chink of light.

"It was perfect to come into a game where you are playing against France and all the intensity that involves. You really have no choice but to rise to the occasion."

And he did, blending in so terrifically with Ireland's ferocious pack that in a funny way you forgot he was even there. The French noticed, a grumbling Sylvain Marconnet waddling off when the front line exchanges were at meltdown.

But the abiding image of the game will be the monstrous Irish drive deep in French territory that destroyed Dimitri Yachvili's put-in and broke the blue resistance.

"There were certain places on the field we felt we could have a go and that call was made a few times. And we sort of got an angle on them, and that time we really got underneath them. You could feel this surge coming from the back and, really, there was no way to go but forward."

And the next thing, Horan was sprinting across open ground and suddenly the ball was in his hands and the try line loomed ahead, the turf behind awaiting like the Promised Land.

"I don't know how that happened, I will have to watch the video. I just sort of ran off Humph's shoulder and the pass came. I think I went for the line too early - I'll have to talk to one of the wingers to get tips on how to finish those off. I was probably thinking of the conversion before touching it down."

It was a moment, though. Three minutes left and 50,000 people creating this storm of noise and he cradling the leather in his hands and just inches away from something so wonderful he never even permitted himself to consider it as he sat battling his nerves beforehand.

"Maybe if I had taken another step or dived a bit earlier, the slippery surface would have carried me over," he muses. "I suppose it will be haunting me now for a couple of weeks. I'll be dreaming about it for a while."

Hardly. Marcus Horan has travelled light years in these 80 minutes. He is settling in beautifully to the Claw's old house and, soon, he will be part of the furniture.