RUGBY:THE FRUSTRATION was etched on their faces as they made a hasty retreat to the airport from the bowels of the Stade Chaban-Delmas. None of this team had ever experienced a winning feeling for Ireland on French soil and at the very least they knew they'd given themselves a chance of a draw.

“I think Deccie summed it up fairly conclusively – we lost it rather than them winning it,” commented Andrew Trimble. “They came out of the blocks fairly quick and we knew they were going to do that. It’s really tough coming down here, with the crowd getting behind them and it’s a bit of a carnival atmosphere and everybody is having a good time, apart from us in the first 20 minutes,” he added with a slight chuckle.

Ireland didn’t help themselves by being a little standoffish in defence, under-committing to rucks and coughing up three successive line-outs at one point.

“It was exactly the same as last week. We got the same sort of feedback after the game that if you can’t hold onto the ball then it’s going to be a long night, especially down here. And I think when you consider how many turnovers we make we actually did well to hold on to the game as long as we did.”

The back three having been retained from last week, there were clear signs of improved understanding, especially between Trimble and Rob Kearney and in counter-attacking.

“It (counter attacking) felt good. Perhaps when their kicks weren’t as accurate as they would have liked I thought we dealt quite well with it. I think whenever you take the ball back at them quick the defence comes off and if you’re fluffing about and throwing iffy passes, just messing about in the back field then it makes it very easy for them.”

“But if you take the ball to them they tend to sit down a little bit, so in some ways there’s a bit of a race to the line with a counter-attack and I think we did quite well in bits and pieces. We still have to work at it but there was something we can take from tonight.”

Trimble also occasionally felt the full force of France’s aggressive, outside-in defence. “They can only do that off line-outs, not so much off scrums, but whenever you get into phase play then it softens a little bit.”

The importance of Mike Ross to this team, almost up there with Paul O’Connell and Brian O’Driscoll, was graphically illustrated by events both while he was on the pitch and, just as pertinently, when he was off it.

Ireland were penalised four times in total, three times on their own feed, which was an acute source of annoyance for the tighthead, not least when he was penalised after Jean-Baptiste Poux had driven him upwards.

Such is Ross’ standing, that you almost presume Poux can’t have been legal about it.

“Referees have different interpretations,” said Ross. “It just popped straight up and a lot of referees would have re-set that. Neither team was going forwards or backwards. But I suppose that’s something you have to learn to deal with and it’s a good thing to have in the memory bank.”

“I haven’t played with Jerry for a while and Tony Buckley was on the loose side, so there were different combinations. It’s a pre-season game and this is where you iron out the defects in your set-ups and I’m confident we’ll improve next week.

“The French are a great bloody test for your first few games – you learn quickly whether you get it right or not.”

“You’re walking around Bordeaux today in 30 degrees, the sun splitting the stones and you’re thinking: ‘oh my God, what’s going to happen here?’ especially in the pressure cooker of the scrum,” he admitted. “Thankfully the sun went down and the temperature dropped rather rapidly. We were scratching our heads thinking ‘why are they having it so late?’ Now we know why.”

Imanol Harinordoquy pretty much summed up the generally satisfied French mood saying: “We are happy about the victory. This match will allow us to know where to go. I was quite surprised with the quality of of first 30 minutes. We played immediately as a team. A thing that we have not done over the months. Our defence was good. Our scrummaging and line-outs where positive. Maybe we played to much rugby during this first 30 minutes.”