How Andy Farrell builds on Paris loss vital for Ireland

While Ireland have taken huge strides forward in the last 12 months, they have taken one step back into the French shadow after their loss in Paris on Saturday night.

In other years that result might be more negative, however, we have learned from past experiences that peaking in the middle of a World Cup cycle builds a lot of expectation but hasn't resulted in a tournament that most would consider to be successful.

Realistically, success in Irish rugby won’t be limited to winning the World Cup.

A winning quarter-final has escaped Ireland and although the players will disagree strongly with the public view, I believe that most supporters would consider a competitive semi-final to be a step in the right direction.

There were so many positives about Ireland’s performance.

Joey Carbery really stepped up in his first Guinness Six Nations start.

It’s hard to believe it was only his first start, considering the amount of rugby he has played. He was more than ready and backed up his talk from the week leading up to the game.

His cross-field kick pass to Andrew Conway at the start of the second half will have reassured everyone that he is ready for a real competition with Johnny Sexton in the next 18 months.

Ireland went toe to toe with the form team in the world.

Les Bleus have the power and pace to do damage to any team in the world now and Shaun Edwards is rightly getting a lot of credit for the way they contained Ireland.

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The defence created issues, and they hammered the Irish