'They were like the All Blacks.'
A common refrain in the aftermath of Ireland’s 41-phase drive that ended with Johnny Sexton’s drop-goal to beat France.
The comparison was valid in that the team had a target, and executed the plan to perfection, completely error-free.
Like robots, they moved into position and did exactly what they needed to do to put the kicker in place. That’s how New Zealand play.
So a team with Ireland’s ambition must be "raging", as Donal Lenihan put it, at how they failed to demolish the hapless Italians.
Sure, the game was over as a contest after 21 minutes when Bundee Aki scored the third try, but it’s from these positions that the world champions turn into zealots, ruthlessly piling pain on their helpless victims, never letting them up for air.
Ireland added another five tries but allowed Italy to break free for three of their own and it would have been four only for Keith Earls’ brilliant late chase.
The 1/100 pre-game favourites' performance was perforated with sloppy handling errors, the kind that professionals just shouldn’t make.
Over to you, Joe. Can you put your finger on why that happened?
"I think it was eagerness to play," Schmidt told RTÉ Sport.
"They hadn’t been quite as proactive against England [with their line-speed]. Maybe they decided that they can’t let Ireland play at us. We’re going to have to play at them.
"They got some good defensive pressure on."
After the Fiji game in November, Schmidt fielded a question about the appearance of more ‘risky passes’, the kind of passes that Ireland had traditionally been shy about throwing.
For almost all of the games Schmidt has overseen since taking over in 2013 it appeared that anything resembling a tricky offload was strictly forbidden.
Against Italy, there were 14 offloads, one thrown by Earls, who had another excellent outing.
The Munster wing caught a high cross-kick on the touchline, was being shovelled over the line, but managed to keep the ball alive with a previously unimaginable blind pass over his head.
"I don’t mind that we take chances but we just want to make sure that we take responsibility for looking after the ball," said the head coach, hinting that there is a time and a place for a more expansive approach, and that time and place is against Italy at home, and not against Wales.
"When you score an early try or two, then you start to maybe get a little bit freer with the ball and maybe force the odd pass and take a chance that you might not otherwise have taken.
"Maybe on another day… [Wales players] Gareth Davies, he doesn’t need too many invitations when there’s loose ball for him to zip away, the likes of Steff Evans and Josh Adams [will punish you].
"That sort of thing we will want to tidy up a bit before we get to Wales."
With the adoption of Aki, who is likely to have another centre partner for the next game after Robbie Henshaw suffered a nasty looking shoulder injury that requires a scan on Sunday, Ireland now have that option of getting the ball away from unlikely positions.
From an evolutionary point of view, it’s good that the team are moving in that direction.
Poor weather accepted, the game plan in Paris was very close to falling flat and delivering a defeat until Ireland turned into the All Blacks.
