Ireland's ability to overcome a pre-Six Nations injury crisis and contend with so many inexperienced players made for a "powerful" campaign that will stand them in good stead for next year's World Cup, coach Andy Farrell said on Saturday.
Ireland were at their ruthless best in a thrilling 43-21 win over Scotland that secured a Triple Crown and kept them in the hunt for a third Six Nations title in four years if England beat France later in Paris.
Missing around a dozen players for the tournament, Farrell began on Saturday with four of the team who started in Scotland a year ago. Six Nations debutant Darragh Murray became the 35th different Irishman to take the field in the last six weeks.
"The story of this Six Nations has been a powerful one for us, certainly internally... How the group have come together and navigated their way through has been pretty special," Farrell told a news conference.
"It's been a hell of an eight weeks but what's happened over that eight weeks matters more to us in a sense that there's been a lot of firsts, with the first caps, first Six Nations and first taking it to the final week, when it matters."
Farrell recalled how he had asked the players with 10 caps or fewer to stand up during a meeting at the squad's pre-tournament camp. He singled out Tommy O'Brien, Rob Baloucoune and Jamie Osborne for having excellent tournaments among the 14 relative novices in the 37-man squad.
Farrell also picked out a couple of standout stories - Tom O'Toole, who he said should be unbelievably proud of moving across from tighthead prop after Ireland lost their four first-choice looseheads, and centre Stuart McCloskey, who the coach said was a strong candidate for player of the tournament.
While Ireland were inconsistent in parts of the campaign - outclassed in Paris and fortunate to win at home to Italy - Saturday's controlled performance over a buoyant Scotland showed their record win in England last month was no fluke.
"It was so pleasing because they played bloody well, they kept banging the door down the whole time. I thought we had a ruthless edge to us in how we defended and converted in the 22, that was the story of the game," Farrell said.