Ireland skipper Johnny Sexton concedes that France's scare against Italy last weekend wasn't all that welcome in the home camp.
Fabien Galthie's 2022 Grand Slam champions opened the defence of their title by scrapping past a sticky Azzurri outfit, who came within a single score of causing a huge upset.
With the top two ranked sides in the world set to go toe-to-toe on Saturday in round two of the Guinness Six Nations, Sexton and likely the rest of the Irish side might have preferred a more routine victory for Les Bleus instead of the kick up the derriere that the 29-24 win provided.
"Yeah, part of me, when I was watching it," said the Leinster out-half with a smile when asked if he had hoped France might have made life easier for themselves.
"But look, we got to see what France are like when they are tested, some good things from that.
"We knew this game, no matter what happened in the first game, for us or for them, was a standalone game come Saturday.
"It's one of those one-off, big games, we know they are going to be big consequences in terms of the rest of the tournament, win or lose.
"We're really focussed on this game and it's good to be able to say that. We were honest when we said we wanted to concentrate fully on Wales and that's exactly what we did last week, which we did.
"A decent performance, especially the first 30 was excellent. We just dropped off a little. It just takes a little bit...so good lessons in it for us as well."
Questioned on what to take from the stuttering nature of France's win, centre Stuart McCloskey also gave a knowing smile.
"I don't want to give too much away, do I," said the 30-year-old Ulster centre, in line for his tenth international cap at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday.
"Italy are a pretty good team now, it's not a surprise they put in such a good performance against France. I don't think the French played terribly, I just think Italy have improved over the last few years.
"There are things we have been looking at this week."
Ireland, under Andy Farrell, have failed to get the better of France in three Six Nations encounters but there has been no more than a single score between the teams in the last two seasons.
Sexton, who declared himself fully recovered from a dead leg suffered in the win over Wales, missed those two games so was able to appraise them from the sidelines.
"I'm not sure [why we have haven't managed a win]," he said.
"Each game was kinda different. Two of them were in Covid and last year was away in an incredible atmosphere on a day when we could have nicked it at the end so there wasn’t too much between us in the latest encounter.
"The other two games, they can score out of nothing.
"I remember in 2020, we had plenty of opportunities five metres out from their line and we weren’t clinical enough and we didn’t take our chances and in Test match rugby if you score a few tries and you’re clinical.. compare that with creating 10 opportunities and take none, then you’re in turmoil.
"That’s kind of where we are after the Welsh game. We were very clinical but we did a lot of things wrong in other parts of our game so we need to learn from that going into this week."
Sexton is now champing at the bit for what is likely to be his last championship clash with France.
"I was saying this morning that it was the Wednesday morning over the last two fixtures that I ended up pulling out so to get through today is great," said the former Racing 92 back.
"So I can hopefully look forward to the game without any more hiccups."
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