"For all the purists of rugby, I thought it was an outstanding game and both teams were deserved winners in the end," said Andy Farrell.
He was referring, of course, not to Ireland's 27-24 win over Scotland, but to his old muckers’ victory over France.
The head coach has already admitted that he will view anything less than victory over next Saturday's visitors as failure.
"Two wins and two good performances," he replied when asked prior to Sunday's game what would he deem a success from the rest of the competition.
So, job half done, kind of.
"As far as the English are concerned, they'll certainly reference their performance next week on what happened [on Saturday].
"England played some outstanding rugby and so did France. That's the team we've got coming over."
After surviving a late scare and getting over the line thanks to cool-head Johnny Sexton’s late penalty, the Ireland boss has his second win of the campaign under his belt.
Too late, of course, to challenge for honours but it’s infinitely better than emerging from the Edinburgh drizzle with a deflating draw that momentarily threatened.
Performance: plenty to work on will be the verdict.
And in light of the fare produced by his young fellow and the rest of his English team-mates against France on Saturday, performance needs a whole lot of attention.
Eddie Jones’ side, just like Ireland stuttered into the tournament, losing to Scotland and Wales, either side of an unconvincing win over Italy.
"Regarding their campaign so far, that's for them to talk about," Andy Farrell said, refusing to be drawn on whether or not he had a working theory for their inconsistency.
Starting with the 32-20 loss to the Red Rose at the start of 2019, Ireland haven’t threatened a performance that would derail the chariot in four meetings. In that time England reached a World Cup final, won a Six Nations title and the Autumn Nations Cup.
But England are not playing like that side at the moment and it’s hard to figure out exactly why they seem, until Saturday at least, so devoid of that swagger.
Psychological damage from the Springboks defeat? Their Saracens getting dumped into the second tier? Covid-19 life taking its toll? Jones-fatigue? All of the above?
"I haven't read too much into it so far to be honest," said Cian Healy when asked if it’s possible to compare the England side who beat Ireland 131-54 over the four games to what he saw against France.
"I just watch it as you are watching any game really.
"My thoughts on England would be that they are very dangerous anyway, a strong power game and it's something that we'll have to be able to front up to.
"Like, their ball-carriers and all haven't really changed so you have to be able to deal with that first."
Sexton says Ireland won't brush over shortcomings
With Ireland’s mixed form also very much in the equation, Farrell and his squad will have to figure out a game plan this week to avoid a fifth straight defeat to England.
So how much of their prep do they spend on their own affairs and how much time to they spend trying to negate what the champions can do when they arrive with the right attitude?
"I think being aware of their threats is definitely something that we will have to do, and that starts in our preparation from now because of the six-day turnaround, but equally we need to work hard to keep growing and bring the best version of ourselves," said Garry Ringrose.
"So it's a balancing act between the two, of being really ready for their threats and what they can bring, as well as doing the same ourselves, because obviously we'll have to bring the best version of ourselves to beat them.
"It will be a bit of both in our preparation."
Stifling an England side, who are also out of contention, would be a fair achievement for Farrell as he signs off on his second Six Nations in charge - that elusive 'statement win'.
Does the captain believe it’s possible, given what he’s seen so far?
"We’ll find out next Saturday, won’t we," said Sexton.
"We feel that we have been building, that we were a bit unlucky in the first couple of games, but even though they have had a couple of bad results they are a team that was in the World Cup final and won the [title] last year.
"They won the Autumn Nations Cup so they are a top, top team and we have to prove that we can match them and put in a performance that can beat one of the top teams because we haven’t done that as of yet."
Follow Ireland v England (kick-off 4.45pm, Saturday) via our live blog on RTE.ie and the RTÉ News app or listen live on RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport. Highlights on Against the Head on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, 8pm Monday.
