In what is rightly being regarded as one of Ireland's best ever championship performances, the side missed an incredible 38 tackles in the 32-19 win over France.
Wingers Damian Penaud and Ethan Dumortier were responsible for most of those, so evasive were the tricky French wingers on Saturday.
But in a world of always looking for places to improve, it’s as good a place to start as any for the championship chasers.
"Maybe Penaud and Dumortier had something on their legs," joked Simon Easterby.
"They seemed to be pretty difficult to put down. They might have greased up for the game.
"It’s partly individual one-on-one work, which the lads have been excellent in doing.
"But part of it is that connecting and yes, the missed tackle count is too high, but sometimes there would be a missed tackle marked on data but actually what it has done is it’s affected what they’ve had to do, so that missed tackle might result in a turnover because you’ve forced someone to step inside or you’ve forced them to do something you don’t want to do by virtue of the pressure you’ve put on a team.
"So that player might miss a tackle, but actually the effect has been quite effective, if you know what I mean, as opposed to him missing it.
"But then off the back of that what happens is do we get a chance to slow them down off that next phase? Do we get the chance to turn them over?
"So I think sometimes the missed tackles need to be put in context.
"What we actually get from the outcome can be very different too, 'missed tackle’ might sound bad but actually the outcome can be different.
"Obviously we want as few missed tackles as we can get."
On Penaud’s try, where he was able to evade a number of tackles either side of a one-two with Anthony Jelonch over 80 yards, there was room for improvement.
Damian Penaud scores from a sensational counter for France. #SixNations #IREvFRA
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Tadhg Beirne, who was later injured and will miss 12 weeks of action, got closest to the Clermont man and was careful not to give away a penalty for a late tackle, perhaps too careful?
Easterby, the Ireland defence coach, did suggest that the players might learn to be a little more streetwise, while staying well within the laws, of course.
"Yeah, there’s a few of those in the game, but certainly making sure we’re a little bit smarter around some of the decision-making," he said.
"There’s no lack of work-rate, that lads are working across the field to try and get to Penaud but then he steps back in under a couple of players.
"So again, in the heat of the moment we need to make sure that we’re giving players exposure to that in the week and then when it comes to a game, under the stresses of the match and the pressures, that they’re responding accurately.
"And we didn’t quite get that right at the weekend but I think the players have come in and they’ve seen what they could do to adjust that, and make sure that in a similar situation that that is something we can still come out on the right side of.
"And certainly the ability to not only stop Penaud in his initial break but also that he doesn’t get a second touch, is really important.
But the former Ireland flanker has plenty of reasons to look back positively on the game. They outscored the Guinness Six Nations Grand Slam champions four tries to one and kept them out of the Irish 22 for all bar 57 seconds.
"Against a team that scores tries and when they do get into strike zones they can hurt you, we only conceded one try," said Easterby when asked the most pleasing aspect of their defence.
"There was a huge amount of work-rate, we scrambled well and we only conceded three defensive penalties.
"We conceded seven penalties in total but I guess we didn’t give them massive access into our half or into our 22.
"They kicked goals as opposed to going for touch and didn’t spend a huge amount of time in our 22 which is where sides like France can start to hurt teams.
"So there was lots of positives. A very good attacking team with massive individual threats and we kept them to one try, but on the other side of that there’s plenty to work on and plenty of individual and team fix ups that we can be better at."
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