Ireland got their 2024 Six Nations campaign off to the perfect start on Friday night dismantling France 38-17 at the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille.
Andy Farrell's side scored five tries over the course of the eighty minutes and were clinical in both attack and defence.
Joe McCarthy produced an inspirational performance at second-row in his tournament debut earning the Player of the Match accolade.
France's defence coach Shaun Edwards was incredibly impressed with his opponents and praised them when speaking after the game.
He highlighted a fascinating statistic proving just how good Ireland were as he revealed they only gave the ball away four times during the match.
Edwards reveals Ireland only gave the ball away four times against France
"We played against a team ranked number two in the world and we just couldn't get any turnovers at the breakdown," he said.
"I thought the ruck speed was absolutely unbelievable. They only lost four balls the whole game whether that be handling errors, line-outs...total turnovers was four, it's just absolutely incredible.
"The performance from the Irish team I thought was fantastic but we should've been more active in that area trying to create the turnovers.
"It was absolutely incredible the performance from the Irish team, it was fantastic."
- France defence coach Shaun Edwards.#FRAvIRE | #GuinnessSixNations pic.twitter.com/01YBePoFac— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) February 3, 2024
Edwards also described Paul Willemse getting sent off as a big blow as he is "vital" in stopping the maul.
"It doesn't surprise me that when you are down to fourteen men...and we lost fourteen balls in total. they lost four...it doesn't really surprise me that we lost.
"They are a world class team. If it was the other way round and we had fifteen and they had fourteen obviously I'd expect to win."
Next up for Ireland is a visit of Italy to the Aviva Stadium next Sunday, while France will be hoping to regroup as they travel to Edinburgh to face Scotland.
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