This morning Gatland woke up as the manager of an Irish team which has defeated France in two Six Nations Championships in a row. Most satisfying of all, the harum scarum heroics of last year’s Paris miracle have given way to a far more controlled display. This time round, Ireland didn’t play like gallant underdogs. Instead their victory was almost predictable.

A predictable victory for Ireland is almost a contradiction in terms. It is a long time since we began the championship with back to back victories. Generally our first match confirms that realistically we have no chance of honours and the second makes that gloomy prognosis a mathematical certainty. But this year, despite the undoubted excellence of an England side apparently as unsinkable as the Titanic, dreams of Triple Crowns and Grand Slams don’t have to be confined to the A and U 21 teams.

Since the glory days of Campbell, Fitzgerald and Kiernan, there have been days when we have upset the odds. There were those two marvellous victories over England in 1993 and 1994 for example. But these were so obviously the products of a team playing above itself on the day that they could not be read as auguries of a glorious future. It was different on Saturday.

For an hour, Ireland were in complete control in all sectors, calmly carrying out their game plan. When they went 22 3 ahead fourteen minutes in the second half, the Lansdowne Road faithful ascended into rugby heaven.

It was, of course, too good to last. France’s comeback in the final twenty minutes would have reaped a bonanza for any intrepid Valium salesman hawking his wares in the crowd. But, paradoxically, it is that final quarter which may be most telling about the true quality of the Irish team.

Had Ireland gone on to win the game by the whopping margin which looked likely as France bobbed in the wake of Brian O’Driscoll’s try, then the result could have been dismissed as somewhat freakish, akin to last year’s demolition of a Scotland team who clearly weren’t as inferior as the scoreboard suggested. It would all have looked too easy. The late French charge asked difficult questions which were generally answered with aplomb.

With ten minutes plus a considerable amount of video influenced injury time remaining, Ireland’s lead had been pulled back to a hardly unassailable seven points. Nerve was about to become just as important as talent and we were entering largely unknown territory.

Last time round, Ireland had nothing to lose. This year they were burdened with a considerable amount of expectation. Previously the weight of this burden had caused the team to buckle at the vital stages against Wales and South Africa.

And, for the first time, Gatland’s team were faced with the task of maintaining a slender lead against quality opposition. Another narrow defeat would have raised the unpalatable prospect that this side didn’t know how to win.

All the ingredients for a Devon Loch style collapse were there. No side surges like a French team in possession of recent tries, few countries have had as many gallant defeats as Ireland.

But Ireland 2001 have learned from history so are not doomed to repeat it.

The performance of Ronan O’Gara was perhaps the most instructive of all. Last year he was a talented neophyte but, against Wales and South Africa, he showed a fragility under pressure. He seems to have come on about three years in six months. His first half was a vintage example of out half play, almost as though he was recording a video to be distributed to Number Tens. Here’s the perfect garryowen, the ideal touch kick, how to force to opposition back with a well judged ball into the corner, notice how I link up with the other backs, observe this little bit of sleight of hand which can also be used for pulling rabbits out of hats. Dominant O’Gara looked every inch a Lion.

When the French struck for those two tries, O’Gara wobbled momentarily. So did his team mates, for a couple of minutes there was a distinctly gelatinous quality about the whole fifteen. His kicks were shorter, he missed a scoreable penalty, he looked ominously worried. Then he got back into the groove. The new moral courage which animates this team could be seen in the last few minutes as he repeatedly moved the ball across the three quarter line.

Previous Irish teams might have put boot to ball and hoped to hold out. This time O’Gara, and his compadre Peter Stringer, just did the right thing. It didn’t matter about the amount of time left, the score or the importance of the game, they put their trust in first principles and were rewarded.

It’s what we have come to expect from the Munster half back pair, and the heartening thing was how much of Ireland’s trump cards were the anticipated ones. O’Gara kicking as calmly as if he was knocking a ball around on the beach, Stringer showing the French that Napoleon is not the only great pint sized general in history, Brian O’Driscoll running at angles which suggest a motorcyclist ascending the wall of death, Keith Wood being Keith Wood, Malcolm O’Kelly an emperor on our own throw ins and a thief on France’s, David Wallace showing the kind of pace and handling ability his boyhood hero Michael Jones would have been proud of, Rob Henderson and Anthony Foley demonstrating that the quickest way past an opponent is through him.

Irish rugby fans are living in interesting times. And on Saturday we saw that what Warren Gatland and Eddie O’Sullivan have instigated is not an uprising but a revolution. In the words of that other revolutionary, Karl Marx, “The great only appear great because we are on our knees. Let us arise.” We have arisen.