Rory O'Connor

But no, it was like, this is the plan.

Stay with it.

It will come good.

And it did.

My feeling leading into this game was, are we becoming kind of...

a team for the big day but not necessarily a consistent team so like maybe La Rochelle they still have a big game in them but they're struggling to do it week on week and the great thing that an injury crisis gives you it forces you to uncover players Osborne at fullback has been a revelation and he will fit in somewhere into the starting back line or at least he's going to be a fantastic option for us off the bench depending on what's needed and who's available Balacoon Tommy O'Brien

In the pack, we're uncovering players because of that injury crisis.

And now we're suddenly going, oh, maybe we've got a lovely balance between experience and youth.

And they weren't.

And we also as well, it's very easy to forget round one of the Six Nations where France do a number on us, the England A come over and do a number on Ireland A. Our 20s conceded 50 points to France.

Now you can look, there's excuses with all that.

England had way more preparation in the A game.

The Ireland under-20s performance was actually better than it looked on the face of it.

It's a world-class 20s side.

But then this week, we had the 20s stepping up, putting together a great performance.

You're now looking at that.

I look at that 20s team and go, there's some guys in there now that have the traits that we need in the national team.

And it's abrasiveness, speed, keeping the ball alive.

No, and I can see why you'd be thinking that way.

But what changes that mindset or that opinion or that view is when you see world-class moments.