Nathan Collins was convinced that his last-gasp header had snatched a point for Ireland, but for the "save of the season" from France goalkeeper Mike Maignan, which resulted in Stephen Kenny's side losing their opening Euro 2024 qualifier.
The Ireland centre-half rose highest in the box to angle an excellent effort towards the top corner in the dying moments of the game, but somehow Maignan managed to get enough on the ball and claw it away to safety - described as the best of the year by Ireland manager Stephen Kenny after the game.
And it would have been a deserved point, according to Collins, who said that he was "heartbroken" not to take anything tangible from the ultimate test against the World Cup finalists.
"It was a very good performance, tactically and physically; I thought we had done enough," said Collins, speaking to RTE Sport’s Damien O’Meara after the game.
"We deserved something but at the end of the day we haven’t and lost the game.
"I thought I’d done everything," he added, when asked about his last-minute attempt. "I got as high as I could, I got power behind it, but it’s an unbelievable save."
Collins believes that Ireland got their tactics spot on against the travelling France side, and felt that Didier Deschamps’ side showed their true quality to pounce on one of the very few mistakes that Ireland made throughout to grab the only goal of the game, courtesy of a Benjamin Pavard wonderstrike.
But the Wolves defender was not too downbeat following the game, taking real encouragement from how his side performed on the night, knowing that it should serve them well going through the remainder of the campaign.
"That’s the difference at the top level. It’s so frustrating. I’m heartbroken for the lads," he said.
"They’re so good, they’re going to get a chance and they took it. We did so well to stay in the game and throw the kitchen sink in the last 10 minutes.
"That’s the quality of the players that we are playing against. And that is the small difference. On another day they might miss that, and we go and nick it, but today they have taken their chance. So all we can do it dust ourselves down and go again.
"But I’m proud of the lads’ performance, there is so much to build on.
"It should give us a lot of belief. We have gone toe to toe with one of the best in the world. It doesn’t matter who we come against, if we play as a team, tactically right with the fans behind us, we can beat anyone."
Aside from the result, the team will also take heart from the job that they did on the World Cup Golden Boot winner, Kylian Mbappe, who was kept out of the game for most of the intriguing encounter, and while Collins was tasked along with Seamus Coleman of marking the superstar striker, he said it was a team effort to get the job completed.
"Listen, I had help, didn’t I?" he said. "Seamie there who was class again. We were helped. It wasn’t just me, it was the whole team. We nullified Mbappe, but it was the whole team."
Collins once again backed his manager and the tactics and approach that he is bringing to the national team, however, he emphasised that the onus now was on the players to carry that performance into the next group games during the summer and through to the end of the campaign in an attempt to qualify for next summer’s tournament in Germany.
"As I said before. I trust the backroom team. I trust the manager," said Collins.
"The way they play. The shape and tactics that they set out and the belief they have for us and how (we are encouraged) to express ourselves.
"There’s a lot of respect, a lot of belief. We got it spot on today I thought but unfortunately, we didn’t get the result.
"That definitely has to be the standard, but that has to come from the players, nobody else. We have to set that, we have to drive that and that is the standard from now on.
"I think you have seen it so many times against the big teams, we put in performances and people are a bit shocked how well we do and how we hurt teams so much.
"But again, it is not just the big teams we need to perform against. We have to have that standard against the so-called smaller nations, who still have quality. We need to keep those standards."
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