Andy Farrell praised his side's resilience as Ireland continued their winning start to the Guinness Six Nations with a 31-7 win against Wales at the Aviva Stadium.
The defending champions remain in the hunt for an unprecedented back-to-back Grand Slam as they picked up a third consecutive bonus-point victory thanks to tries from Dan Sheehan, James Lowe, Ciarán Frawley and Tadhg Beirne.
It's difficult to know whether the 24-point winning margin flattered Ireland or not.
While their discipline fell apart in the third quarter as they allowed Wales get a foothold in the contest, they were perhaps unlucky to only lead 17-0 after what had been an utterly dominant first 40 minutes.
And while Wales head coach Warren Gatland said he didn't believe the scoreline was a fair reflection on the contest, Farrell suggested his side should have been further ahead.
"It probably should have been 40 or 44-7, there were a couple of tries that were notched off there," the Ireland coach said as he looked back on some missed Irish chances.
"I thought we got what we deserved in the end. If the forward pass from Robbie [Henshaw] hadn't have been knocked off I thought that was going to be an unbelievable try, and again, it was finding a way to make inroads.
"I actually thought they [Wales] defended really well at times.
"It was hard to break down but to get the bonus-point win, 31-7, I thought we should have been further up in the first half to be fair, but I do understand that this is a young Welsh side that’s trying to gain experience as well, and I thought they played bloody tough, that’s for sure."
Farrell admitted to frustration that his side weren't further ahead at half time, having had 70% possession and 62% territory in the opening 40 minutes.
And he explained how Ireland were "passive" in attack, despite being in control of the game.
"What I meant by passive was Wales were able to keep numbers on their feet because we weren't punching on to the ball.
"It's not just the ball carrier but the dummy runners outside them.
"If they’re not punching on to the ball then they can’t disorganize the defence. It just becomes easy for them to read off and we played too much out the back at times which made us a bit sideways and more passive than we would have liked."
While elements of the game, and the stop-start nature of the contest, left him frustrated, Farrell said the big positive of the afternoon's win was the impact of his replacements.
In particular, Rónan Kelleher (above) and Ryan Baird came on and provided a spark Ireland had been missing for the majority of the third quarter.
"They were always going to come on and add some power in the first place," he added.
"When you bring a bit of power on to the field when others are a bit tired, and for that 10 minutes of the yellow card [for Tadhg Beirne] it was free flowing and there people sucking it in big time.
"They were always going to take advantage of that and they got us back on the front foot. That's the job, that’s what we expect of them.
"If you fast-forward right to the end result and then work our way back, I thought we was tenacious to be able to get to that point, a 31-7 win with a bonus-point.
"There was all sorts of stuff going on in that game, some of it was our own doing but most of it was because we played against a tenacious Welsh side as well, so congratulations to them, but we stuck at it and brought them down in the end."
