The French coach found those closing moments quite stressful, but overall he was happy with the performance, he tells GAVIN CUMMISKEY

AWAY GO France to prepare for what is already being billed as the Six Nations final at Twickenham on February 26th.

They came to Dublin and snatched away any notions of this Irish team completing another Grand Slam, leaving 2009 in splendid isolation for a few more years yet.

Vincent Clerc’s last-gasp robbery at Croke Park in 2007 was almost reversed by Seán Cronin’s charge for glory, only for the hooker’s spillage to save France.

Helplessly watching on, Marc Lievremont was understandably stressed. Extremely so.

That’s what Ireland’s rampant endgame assault did to him.

Scant consolation for Ireland, as a game that was there to be won was left out on the field.

“I liked that we bounced back well,” said the French coach. “We all knew the context of this match. It could have been a total disaster, but nonetheless we fought our way back and managed to put ourselves in a position to lead.

“There were lots of good moments, such as the lineout and impressive footwork. There was, however, some wasted possession, but overall we played very well.

“The Irish could have won. There was only three points in it in the end and the last few minutes were extremely stressful for us.”

So much was made of the scrum in the lead-up, but, typically, it didn’t dominate the contest as many had feared. That is, until the last play of the game when the French eight, entrenched in their 22, won the match-ending penalty.

“In that last scrum anything was possible,” Lievremont admitted. “It was a moment of absolute panic, but we managed to pull through for the win.”

Both coach and captain Thierry Dusautoir conceded that Ireland’s furious opening startled France.

“It was a question of not knowing how to respond,” said Lievremont. “However, they made lots of mistakes and we were able to take advantage of them.

Dusautoir added: “The message was that we needed to take action immediately. The Irish caught us napping and that is something we have got to work on.”

The French press were eager to confine this game to history as England loom on the horizon. Lievremont attempted to silence this chatter yesterday. He comes across as his team’s harshest critic, which is some achievement considering the abuse they have come in for since Australia walloped them 59-16 in November.

“I think that we need to appreciate today’s victory. England are ahead of everyone else at the moment. We know it is going to be a complicated match. We will deal with it after this.

“There was disciplinary and technical mistakes that came from impatience today. I feel that we suffered physically and lost our vision and discipline as a result. There was wasted ball.

“They scored tries against us and managed to put us under pressure for 80 minutes. With a bit more patience we would have been able to find a solution to the problem.”

The French coach playfully awarded his team a collective four out of 10 for the performance in a slight rebuke of Dusautoir who felt his team-mates deserved a satisfactory “five out of 10”.

The Irish pack were awarded sixes and a seven for their endeavour on these pages, but Lievremont clearly operates off a stricter marking policy. Go figure.

More numbers? Two rugby coaches, brothers actually, in the stadium provided this reporter with a different post-game perspective. They were perched near the touchline, directly across from the replacements benches and couldn’t help but notice the Irish 16 to 22 warmed up just once after half-time; around the 45 minute mark. The French? Six times they stretched their limbs in anticipation of some action.

Maybe, the brothers remarked, most of the Irish subs knew their services would only be required for five-minute cameos at the finish.

The French re-enforcements came on in a trickle as early as the 54th minute and they only made 88 tackles, missing three, to Ireland’s 108, missing four.

Besides fresh halfbacks arriving around the hour mark and Tom Court replacing the injured Cian Healy, the Irish reserves of Leo Cullen and Cronin were held until the dying minutes.