France captain Charles Ollivon believes the battling Guinness Six Nations victory over Ireland represents a significant “new step” for his rapidly-developing side.
Les Bleus underlined their status as tournament favourites by grinding out a 15-13 win in Dublin to move top of the championship table.
Fabien Galthie’s men showed glimpses of their scintillating best on Sunday but a first Aviva Stadium success in a decade was primarily built on the strength of their resilient defence.
Flanker Ollivon, who scored the opening try, felt the game was among the toughest physical tests of his career and attributed an important victory to France’s mentality.
“It was a tough match, a real ferocious battle and I am so happy for the group, for our supporters and for France,” he said.
“I think it’s a state of mind, it made us win. It was a very, very tough battle, there was not one second of freedom.
“We have to congratulate every guy, the whole team. This is real pride for us. When you look at the quality of the opponent, we need to savour that we won that match.
“It was a very intense battle. It was one of the toughest I have played, personally, that’s why I am so happy we ended up as winners.
“I think it’s a new step for the group and this is important; we are going forward, we are improving, we need to remain calm, we need to work, but we are going the right way.”
Toulon player Ollivon touched down his seventh try in 10 games while France were temporarily a man light following Bernard Le Roux’s yellow card for a trip on Keith Earls.
Damian Penaud added a second score in the second half and, despite replacement Ireland hooker Ronan Kelleher crossing to cut the advantage, Les Bleus held on for a ninth win from 11 games under head coach Galthie.
It is 11 years since France last tasted Six Nations glory.
Team manager Raphael Ibanez, who won the championship four times as a player, including two Grand Slams, is refusing to get carried away with title talk ahead of hosting Scotland on February 28.
“We’ll see. We’ll take it step by step. We’re going to enjoy the win, regroup as a team and be ready for the next challenge,” he said, according to the Six Nations website.
“It was a hard-fought win away from home, so it’s a big relief for the boys.
“Our defence was outstanding throughout the whole game, it showed our team spirit and character was there.”
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 here