Tadhg Beirne admits Ireland were totally outclassed as their Guinness Six Nations campaign got off to a sobering start in Paris.
Pre-match apprehension outside the team proved justified at Stade de France, with the defending champions blowing Ireland away in the opening 50 minutes, racing into a 29-0 lead, and although Ireland's bench made some impact on the game, tries for Nick Timoney and Michael Milne were purely consolation scores in a 36-14 hammering.
And Beirne was equally honest in his assessment.
"I think that first half performance was nowhere near where we expect and the scoreline on half time was probably deservedly in France's way with the way we played, unfortunately," he told RTÉ Sport.
The statistics made for damning reading, with Ireland missing 38 tackles for a 67% completion rate.
"I think physically they probably dominated us, they won the aerial battle and then any bouncing ball, you know how dangerous France are and we found ourselves underneath our post a couple of times and we had a bit of a mountain to climb in that second half.
"We gave it a good crack in the second half but ultimately it was too big of a mountain for us to get back into the game.
"That's the danger that they have, the speed they have, the skill they have."
Tries for Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Matthieu Jalibert and Charles Ollivon had the French cruising at 22-0 by half time, and they wrapped up their bonus point by the 46th minute when Thomas Ramos’ clever volley to the wing sent Bielle-Biarrey in for his second of the night.
For Beirne, it was a score that summed up the night.
"You see Dupont, you see the space and then Ramos - to have the knowledge to just kick it through - and then obviously you have Bielle-Biarrey [below] with the speed on the wing.
"Any bouncing ball, you have to be on it. You can't lose a second against these guys otherwise they're going the length and I think they showed their class today.
"It's in France's hands now, they've got a bonus point win against us. You know, the Championship is in their hands.
"All we can do now is regroup, dust ourselves off and make sure we're better next week against Italy and go from there and make sure we don't have another loss in this tournament," he added.
Head coach Andy Farrell didn’t sugar coat his reaction, saying his team lacked intent and fight during a first half in which they conceded three tries.
And it would appear the Irish boss was even more blunt to his players for their application in that opening 40 minutes.
"I don't know if a lot of that can be repeated," Stuart McCloskey (above) said, when asked what Farrell had told the squad at the half time break.
"We weren't playing our game. They were probably battering us physically. We needed to win some collisions and get back in the game, that way.
"Forty-five minutes off your game and you're 29 points down, chasing the game.
"They're an incredible side when they're playing like that and we just didn't deal with it in the first half."
McCloskey was one of Ireland’s better performers on the night in Paris, making nine tackles and 14 carries, while his direct running set up Ireland’s opening try for Timoney.
But while there was far greater purpose to the way Ireland played in the final 30 minutes, the Ulster centre knows there was no coming back from the first half damage.
"Once we got into some of our game in the second half, once we got a bit of ball, I thought we went pretty well, going forward.
"We could have scored that third try which got disallowed and we kind of would have been back in the game but we left ourselves too much to do by then.
They just took every chance they had in the first half and they played some amazing rugby.
"We needed to get back on top of them physically, win some collisions and get a couple of turnovers but I don't think they gave away a penalty in the first half. They were pretty good over the rock. They kicked in the right positions. It just battered us really."
With this championship opener coming on a Thursday night, Ireland will now have two extra days to prepare for next week’s visit of Italy to Dublin, where there will be significant pressure on Ireland to rebound with a win.
"You've got to get turned around pretty quickly," McCloskey added.
"So we just take a couple days off now, back in Sunday. We'll review that pretty hard I'm sure and you have to move on quickly.
"This thing goes on pretty quickly now. So we'll move on to Italy next week."
Watch England v Wales on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player from 4pm on Saturday, with France v Ireland in the Under-20 Six Nations to follow from 7.50pm on the RTÉ News Channel and RTÉ Player.
