Andy Farrell hailed the "immense character" of his Ireland team after overcoming a swathe of early injuries to see off Scotland and set up a Grand Slam shot against England.
Ireland lost Caelan Doris, Dan Sheehan and Iain Henderson by the 24th minute and Ronan Kelleher and Garry Ringrose were second-half casualties.
The loss of two hookers resulted in flanker Josh van der Flier throwing the ball into the lineout and versatile prop Cian Healy performing hooker duties at scrum-time.
"It was immense, the character," Farrell told RTÉ Sport after the 22-7 win, during which Ireland trailed for just 11 minutes.
"It wasn't champagne rugby, but in terms of character, fight and want for each other - that's the best game I've been involved in.
"If you'd have seen us at half-time, honestly you'd have laughed because all the lads were laughing.
"It was organised chaos, we didn't know what was happening until the last second about whether Ronan was coming back on.
"We made half a plan with Cian going to scrummage, because he's good at that and that paid off for us."
"Josh throwing in, well what can't he do?
"He took up golf three years ago and he's in single figures on his handicap.
"I just thought for somebody like Garry on his 50th cap, that we're able to do a special performance [was great]
"Someone like Garry deserves something like that to look back on."
Captain Johnny Sexton, who equalled the all-time Six Nations points record with two conversions and a penalty, praised Farrell for having the team primed to excel in adversity.
"It's driven by Andy since he’s come in," said the 37-year-old, who has now scored 557 points in the competition, level with former Ireland out-half Ronan O'Gara.
"We want to be a tougher team, tougher to go through things like that. Even in New Zealand when we were there and we had Covid in the camp, we had front-rowers going down all over the shop and we managed to put in some performances there.
"So we’ve built it over the last three years and it’s nice for it to come to fruition today, I think. So look, a very special day but ultimately it’s a semi-final and the big one is next week."
On sharing the record with his former team-mate, Sexton said with a smile: "Yeah, ROG will be trying to pay me off to retire now.
"It's obviously a nice thing, hopefully I can get back on the pitch next week and like I said, it’s all about winning. These other things come along but they are not at the forefront of my mind."
