IRELAND'S title-winning coach Joe Schmidt admitted last night that the dramatic closing moments of the RBS 6 Nations Championship had been a nerve-racking experience for himself and his players.
Ireland took the trophy after England came up just short on points difference despite beating France 55-35. However, Ireland's title was in jeopardy to the last play of the game, when France tried to run a penalty from their own line.
"I looked up and thought, 'that's not good'," smiled Schmidt.
It was the first time since 1949 that Ireland had managed to retain the title, and captain Paul O'Connell said the achievement, in what looks likely to have been his last Six Nations appearance, was all the sweeter for that.
"It's special for different reasons," said O'Connell. "It's special because of the way we had to rebound from losing to Wales last week and it's special because it has been so long since we put back-to-back titles together."
O'Connell and his players had been criticised for their conservative play in earlier rounds, but they doubled their try tally with four touchdowns against Scotland.
O'Connell said: "We would have loved to have produced rugby like that more often. At times we did; we just didn't finish so it didn't look like we were doing it. Any time you win a championship it is incredible; I don't care what way we play. It is an amazing achievement and an amazing feeling.
"It was a bizarre day. I suppose a lot of things did happen in our favour. For three games to go like that and for us to come out on top, maybe someone was smiling down."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article