Saturday 2 February 2019 22:50, UK
George North believes that Wales made a great statement with their odds-defying Six Nations victory over France in Paris on Friday night.
British and Irish Lions wing North was instrumental in Wales overcoming a 16-0 half-time deficit, scoring two tries that sent Warren Gatland's men off and running in this season's tournament.
Their 24-19 triumph looked improbable at the break as France cruised clear, with North's defensive mistake contributing to his opposite number Yoann Huget claiming a try.
But the tables then turned completely as North capitalised on a defensive howler by Huget to score, before collecting a long-range interception touchdown that made it 36 tries for him in 80 Wales Tests.
No team in Five or Six Nations history had erased such a points margin to win, and North said: "We don't want to ever be in that position, but to come back is certainly a positive for us.
"To go to Paris on a Friday night in such horrible conditions and win is a great statement from us. It puts us in a good position.
"We came in at half-time and we felt we hadn't even taken a shot, as such.
"We didn't do much with the possession we had, and the handling errors didn't allow us to get a foothold in the game. I don't think we got above even one or two phases in the first half.
"The message was clear at half-time - go back to the game plan and cut out errors and execute."
Wales have now won 10 games in a row, prompting Gatland to say that Wales had "probably forgotten how to lose," although North was not so sure.
"It didn't feel like that in the first half!" he added.
"Warren says to us that winning is a habit, and sometimes you need to go through a rough patch and come out the other side to get that.
"At half-time we didn't panic. We just had to execute what we needed to do, and we did that.
To go to Paris on a Friday night in such horrible conditions and win is a great statement from us.
"We've started here and we would have wanted a better performance, but we got the win and now we go to Rome needing to work on a lot of standards within our camp.
"We can only take one step at a time, but if we can win both our two opening games then it will put us in a great position going into the first fallow week of the Six Nations."
Huget failed to gather Wales centre Hadleigh Parkes' rolling kick for North's opener, being unable to ground it behind his own line, and the chasing Welshman pounced.
"Nine times out of 10 that doesn't happen, but the one time you don't chase is the one time someone messes up," added North. "You have to keep running everything down.
"We were better in the second half, and we need to look at that and see what we can improve.
"We've got a good block of training now down in Nice building into the Italy game next weekend, and we need to work hard."
