It says a lot about where Ireland are coming from that a 21-point defeat can be viewed as a "confidence booster".
But context, as always, is everything.
France came into the opening game of the 2024 Guinness Women's Six Nations as 40-point favourites against an Irish team who finished last season pointless.
The aggregate score from their previous two meetings was 93-8 in favour of Les Bleues.
Ireland's two best players of the 2023 campaign, Nichola Fryday and Deirbhile Nic a Bháird were missing through international retirement and injury, respectively.
Co-captain Sam Monaghan was ruled out late in the day as she undergoes return-to-play protocols following a concussion picked up on club duty.
The lineout didn't function well and the scrum creaked at times but all things considered the margin of defeat, which was a 29 points better than the game 12 months ago, gives Scott Bemand's side a foothold at the base of the mountain they are climbing.
"We brought the fight to the French for sure."
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 23, 2024
Irish captain Edel McMahon was happy with a lot of things in the loss to France, but stressed there was a lot of improvement needed too moving forward. pic.twitter.com/CYC22Co0pz
"It's a big confidence booster for us," captain Edel McMahon told reporters after the 38-17 loss in Le Mans.
"This was our first real test since [the WXV3 in] Dubai to have a crack at World Cup contending squads and we showed that we can contend with them.
"To fine tune some of our set-piece and our exits and our kick strategy is something we’ll go after, but it gives us a lot of confidence knowing that we’re heading in the right direction.
"[The atmosphere] was unbelievable. I think a lot of the players were quite excited about the crowd.
"I think we took it in, I think we fed off that. I definitely don’t think it gave us any fear. I think people relished the opportunity to play in a 15,500 full stadium."
Ireland, with out-halves Nicole Fowley and Dannah O'Brien played a half each, kicked 28 times in-play, making 877 metres.
"Last year was coming out of watching a horror film, this year you've kind of come out of watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – there’s a bit of hope."
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 23, 2024
Lindsay Peat feels Ireland are in a much better position than last year, but have to show that at home to Italy. pic.twitter.com/70Z8QW7Q6s
The chase varied in quality, however, with the French back-three more often than not having enough time to kick back with interest or start a counter-attack after beating the first Irish player.
"There’s a kicking piece that we’re going to keep going after and what kicking pressure looks like," replied Bemand when asked what areas he's like to see improve for Sunday's visit of Italy to the RDS.
"I think our attack game, once we got into the right areas of the pitch, there’s a little bit of fine tuning there.
"There’s lineouts really that we fancy ourselves more often than not to be winning, which lets you then build your pressure up the pitch, and maybe just left France off the hook a little bit there."
Ireland were always likely to be feeding off scraps and top scorer Béibhinn Parsons (above) got precious little front-foot ball. On the other flank, debutant Katie Corrigan got a lesson in top-class rugby.
"I actually thought Béibh had a couple of interesting moments," said former England assistant Bemand, taking charge of his first Six Nations tie as head coach.
"Would we like to see the ball in Béibh's hands more often? Absolutely.
"It’s part of what we want to become. We want people to see a brand that is interesting, that is multi-dimensional and that involves our wingers getting on the ball.
"We’ll look at that. Good old Irish weather over in France, a bit of rain came down and a hard defence to play against with the French.
"We’d probably like to see the ball in their hands on our terms more.
"Katie Corrigan, in her last three games [in the Celtic Challenge], is scoring a lot of tries and within our training, which is pretty competitive, she is scoring tries.
"It’d be nice to see the ball in wingers’ hands, it’d be nice to see them on the front-foot and see what they can do."
Yesterday, Italy proved no match for the five-in-a-row champions England, who ran out 48-0 winners despite playing for 69 minutes with just 14 players after Sarah Beckett's red card.
"The Italians bring their own brand which I think actually is a reasonable brand," added Bemand, speaking before the game in Parma.
"Plenty goes on when you play the Italians. They’re reasonably good at keeping the ball.
"They’re going to give you some interesting kicks, little kicks off Beatrice [Rigoni, centre], little pushes in behind, little chip overs.
"So, they’ll be a good team. They’ve had a little bit of a rewrite themselves _ obviously a newish coaching staff, but they’re a year in, so perhaps they’re slightly more embedded into their playing philosophy than us but we’re looking forward to welcoming them.
"We know that we’ve got a game that can give them plenty of problems.
"So, we’re looking to fire more shots next week."
