Andy Farrell praised his side's impeccable composure as they began their Guinness Six Nations title defence with a sensational win away to France in Marseille.
Ireland's 38-17 win at the Orange Velodrome was their biggest ever away to Les Bleus, as Jamison Gibson-Park, Tadhg Beirne, Calvin Nash, Dan Sheehan and Rónan Kelleher's tries gave Ireland a bonus-point victory on the road.
While they led from start to finish in an impressive display, they had to withstand a couple of mini French revivals, seeing a 14-point lead cut to seven on two separate occasions, while also dealing with a second half yellow card to captain Peter O'Mahony.
The game was arguably won during that sin-binning, as Sheehan's try secured the BP for Ireland just before O'Mahony's return.
And Farrell said that mental resilience was the most impressive element of the victory.
"As a team, certainly our composure because it wasn't all singing all dancing," the Ireland coach said.
"A French side that's always going to pose questions and the crowd was always going to get behind them at times, but we managed to silence them quite a lot through good composure with how we played the game.
"It's something, as you’ve heard us talking about over the last couple of years, we continue to work on, making sure that we don’t get too ahead of ourselves or too down on ourselves."
France played the bulk of the game with 14 men after Paul Willemse's red card late in the first half. The second row had earlier been sin-binned for a head-high shot on Andrew Porter, before a second head-shot on Caelan Doris saw him sent off permanently before the break.
Despite that, Damian Penaud's try before the break saw France cut Ireland's lead down to 17-10, but it didn't fluster the defending champions, who added to their lead through Nash's first international try.
"I think when you're playing against 14 men for a long period, sometimes subconsciously you tend to shut up shop a little bit more, I thought our intent was pretty good and we were pretty ruthless when we needed to be, then obviously on top of that I thought our lineout in attack and defence was outstanding.
"I thought we were excellent in that regard, albeit probably a 10-minute period before half-time where there was a knock-on effect from a couple of penalties that were given away. And we lost our way a little bit at the start of the second half, whether it was our fault or not with regards to the penalties that didn’t go our way, it was a five or six-minute period.
"But all in all I thought we were really good. Even the players talked about it at half-time and after the match there, their composure was great, able to get onto the next moment and keep on building our game.
"So I don’t think we became too fazed, albeit it wasn’t perfect."
O'Mahony, who took over the captaincy from the retired Johnny Sexton after the World Cup, said the result was up there with the best he's experienced in his 102-cap career.
"I don't think it gets any better really. With the stress of the last couple of days I’d have given the whole lot up for a win tonight. Away from home, first game up, Friday night, Marseille, the Velodrome, I’d have been a happy man packing the whole lot in tomorrow morning if you’d given me the chance to take a win."
The record away win was just Ireland's fourth away to France in more than 40 years, and the Irish captain said the margin of victory was far beyond his expectations.
"No, it has to be right up there. I said inside it’s the biggest margin that we’ve beaten France by. I remember as a young fellah, watching Irish teams, and you’d be hoping that they’d hang on in there, whereas it’s a different animal now," he added.
