Immediately after that record French win, Antoine Dupont was looking ahead to a potentially tournament defining clash with Ireland on March 8.

“It was a really tough game, especially the start,” he tols ITV. “We were able to keep our intensity during the 80 minutes, and it’s not an easy thing to do against this team of Italians, so we can be proud.

“There was a lot of good things during the game against England, but when we had to score tries, we made a lot of mistakes. Today was much better, we scored on each occasion.

“We know it will be a huge game against Ireland in Dublin, we have two weeks to prepare for that. It will probably be the main points of the tournament, the main game for us.”

“We’ll see, it will be tough for sure.”