"Aw, like, lads, Wales are a good side," goes Peter O'Mahony, who was quick to show frustration with a hardly demanding line of questioning.
Wales out-tackled Ireland, with an astonishing 289 successful hits for a 93 percent completion rate, but they also out foxed their guests for long stretches of this gripping Six Nations duel.
“I don’t know what more you want me to say. I don’t know what their game plan is. I don’t know whether they got it right or not. They certainly were more physical than us and dominated us around the breakdown and other areas as well.”
The Munster captain, so clearly annoyed, kept repeating the same short answers, so we poked him some more by asking if it was the nature of defeat that hurt the most.
“Nobody likes losing,” O’Mahony replied. “I don’t think we imposed ourselves, which is disappointing, that’s my issue. We can’t be feeling sorry for ourselves. We’ve got a big game next week defending the championship, which hasn’t been done in a long time.”
The last time was 1949.
When the anguish of a lost Grand Slam dissipates, Ireland will examine three key moments, starting with the opening Welsh salvo when Leigh Halfpenny banked 12 points from four indiscretions in 15 minutes.
The first penalty was for not "rolling away" at ruck time, the second was against O'Mahony going off his feet after Jonathan Davies powered through Johnny Sexton, the third came when Gethin Jenkins clamped over Jamie Heaslip, the fourth was after three Irish bodies slowed the flowing Welsh tide.
“It’s unlike us. I was certainly one of them. It’s just out of character.”
It was better than conceding four tries. Wales were rampant, dominant.
Also during this period we saw the usual aerial assault albeit with different results. Wales caught four high balls, with Halfpenny over Conor Murray and Jamie Roberts over Rob Kearney warming the 73,950 audience.
“They obviously worked hard and they were very impressive there,” O’Mahony conceded. “But I don’t think you can blame one area or one aspect of it; I think overall they were the better side.”
Sexton, easily his worst game for Ireland since the 2011 World Cup, brought it back to 15-9 by half-time but Dan Biggar's drop goal, when captain Sam Warburton was sin-binned, felt like another crucial score.
Already phenomenal, Paul O’Connell rose to meet the Welsh challenge.
On 50.18 the newest Irish centurion thundered into the 22. It was his second clean line break in this latest epic showing. There followed 26 consecutive phases, mostly one-up carries, five each from O'Connell and Jamie Heaslip, before Wayne Barnes penalised Wales for sealing off.
Sexton kicked to touch, Wales defended the driving maul and 17 more phases until Sexton passed to Payne before the outhalf was penalised for going off his feet at the ensuing ruck.
Wales, both players and crowd, celebrated like they had won the match.
But at 15-9 and with 26 minutes to play, the Grand Slam was still alive.
Wales try
Victory looked certain, however, after Jonathan Davies’ line splitting break, brilliantly veering away from Kearney and
Simon Zebo
, was only momentarily stalled by
Tommy Bowe
. Wales looked unstoppable with Scott Williams eventually sliding between Heaslip (who rushed up) and Bowe.
“A mix up between us,” said Bowe. “Need to see it again. Suppose it was a soft try.”
That helter skelter period, from Davies entering Ireland’s 22 to Williams diving over, took less than three minutes and included Ireland coughing up their fourth lineout.
But at 20-9 and 61 minutes played the Grand Slam was still, barely, alive.
The second major Irish assault needed to yield a quick seven points.
It didn't. An O'Connell pass, which might have been intended for O'Mahony, was fumbled by Cian Healy to provide more visible Welsh relief. All told, it brought the total time battering away in the Welsh 22, without any joy, up to nine and a half second half minutes.
The excellent Jared Payne and Bowe spent these moments wildly flapping their arms and roaring for the halfbacks to see the numerical advantage out wide.
“Yeah it was pretty loud out there and it was tough to get the message across. We were screaming, certainly, but unfortunately it didn’t come out to us,” said Payne. “It’s about playing rugby under pressure and it gets to you. Look, it’s a bit of both; good defending and some poor decisions.”
Expect a tough review from the coaches? “Yeah we deserve a tough review.”
Camped in the scoring zone, it felt like Ireland of yesteryear; plenty of aggressive intent yet lacking the savvy to drive the knife home. “We’ll take loads of lessons out of it,” added O’Mahony.
