Wales coach Rob Howley was beaming after his side's hard-fought Six Nations victory over France in Paris on Saturday.
The 16-6 win was Wales' biggest in French capital for 38 years with a late try from wing George North the killer blow that ended a run of eight successive defeats.
"It is a pretty special day for the Wales team," said interim head coach Howley.
"We kept on saying we hadn't become a bad team overnight. Fine margins are the difference in Test match rugby.
"The players showed character and our defence put France under a lot of pressure. The players deserve all the accolades."
France failed to score a try against Wales for the third successive game.
"It was a huge defensive effort - we defended particularly well," added Howley.
"We were effective in terms of putting pressure on the ball, and our defence was absolutely outstanding.
"The belief and confidence you can get from a result like this is so important, and we can take that with us to Italy now.
"The important thing is it that it hasn't felt like we had lost seven or eight games on the bounce. The one thing these guys have continually done is worn that jersey with pride and given 100 percent."
Wales defence specialist Shaun Edwards echoed the head coaches' sentiments.
"France seem to bring the best out of us in defence. We respect and fear their attack so much that it brings the best out of us," he said.
"That was the third successive game they haven't scored a try against us."
Comments
admack says...
Agreed the most dull and uninspiring game of rugby I've ever seen. both teams will struggle in the other matches.
Posted 20:23 10th February 2013
timmo says...
one of the worst matches i have ever seen with neither side gaining any credit whatsoever
Posted 17:40 10th February 2013
RobinMasters says...
Yeah, well done Wales, but don't get carried away, anyone would beat this poor, unambitious, disorganised French XV, so I'm happy Wales ended a long streak of defeats, but honestly, who fears Wales today? They were just a little above France, what a reference...
Posted 11:20 10th February 2013
ArmchairGeneral says...
Well done Wales. I knew they'd beat a good team. However theyve not changed anything so they'll be relying on confidence again which can is a gamble. Its not the main ingredient missing: that would be creativity / unpredictability / variety, followed by leadership, Frances main missing ingredient. the suprise here is that Edwards is basically saying he coached the win so I wouldn't like to be in that coaching set up. As Halfpenny pointed out Wales took their chance.
Posted 09:13 10th February 2013