Richie Murphy admitted his Ireland side were "outplayed" by France in their World Rugby U20 Championship final defeat, but says his admiration for his players has grown even further on their run to the decider.
Ireland were blown apart by a rampant French side at the Athlone Sports Stadium in Cape Town, Les Bleus scoring five second-half tries to run out 50-14 winners and claim their third U20 world title in a row.
Ireland had made a bright start, leading 7-0 and 14-10 at stages in the first half, but the power and pace of France proved far too much for the Six Nations champions, whose 11-game unbeaten run came to an end.
"Outplayed, yeah," was the short assessment of Ireland head coach Murphy.
"In fairness the French are very good, we knew that going in. We knew that would have to be very accurate in order to get ourselves in the game. We started pretty well."
The game flipped early in the second half when Ireland were down to 14 players following a Paddy McCarthy yellow card, with Pierre Jouvin and Nicolas Depoortere both scoring tries for France in a five-minute period, turning their 17-14 advantage into a 31-14 lead.
However, Murphy was wondering what might have been after the game, as he questioned the validity of that Jouvin score.
"Still, couple of big moments in game where we were very much in it, a couple of things went against us.
"The [Jouvin] try on 41 minutes is a killer. If you go back and have look at it, you'll see that someone joined maul from in front of the ballcarrier, which should be a penalty to us, it should be an opportunity to get out of our end, but those moments in the game cause extra stress in your team. We weren't accurate enough ourselves though.
"Our lineout didn't function as well as it has done in the rest of the championship which was a bit of a disappointment, but there are so many reasons for that. The French are a very good team, they put lot of pressure in that area and in fairness to them they got the better of us there.
"It's disappointing to get into a final, you only ever want to win. We go home with a silver medal, which we are extremely proud about, but today is about the final, France are deserved winners, played really good rugby and we weren't quite at the level."
It's been an emotional run to the final for Ireland, whose camp was rocked by the death of Greig Oliver. The Munster coach had been out in Cape Town supporting his son Jack, who was part of the Irish squad, when he was killed in a paragliding accident last week.
Murphy said he has seen his players grow both as rugby players and men over a difficult fortnight.
"I told you last week that we were proud of them before we ever came to Cape Town, and they've built on that," he said.
"Over the course of the year, going back to October, they came in as boys and they'll leave here as very mature young men who have had an incredible experience together as a group, but also from a rugby point of view where they've been stretched on a regular basis and just keep coming back with answers.
"I'm extremely proud of Gus [McCarthy, Ireland's captain] and the rest of the guys, they've been incredible to work with."
