Warren Gatland admitted his Wales side got out of jail on Friday night as they produced a storming second-half fightback to down Wales in their Guinness Six Nations opener in Paris.
Wales have now won ten Tests in a row but they had to do it the hard way in Paris, as Les Bleus opened up a 16-0 half-time lead.
But French fallibility crept into the second half, as George North was handed a double on a plate while Tomos Williams also crossed to begin the fight back.
And the Welsh defence held firm in the end to seal victory and leave Gatland breathing a sigh of relief.
“We were terrible in the first-half, holding onto the ball. The message at half-time was just to raise the tempo and if we can get through four or five phases holding the ball we’ll create chances, and we did that in the second-half,” he said.
“You’ve got to believe in yourself. I’ve always been positive, always been an optimist. I thought today that our game management was poor, we didn’t manage it as well as we could. We found a way to win and we’ve forgotten at the moment how to lose games. It’s a big start for us.
“To win this Championship – and everyone who’s won it in the last ten years – there’s games you get lucky in.
“We look back on times when we won the Championship, won the Grand Slam and we’ve had a little bit of luck, bounce of the ball. You need that to win this Championship, because it is tough, but momentum does really help as you go along.”
And skipper Alun Wyn Jones admitted his side will need to tighten up on the errors that plagued their first-half performance.
“I think conditions won the day today more than we did, but there’s a lot to work on and a positive result as well,” he added.
“We hold our hands up and say that we probably came out a bit cold. We probably tried to do too much, but like I say we learned pretty quickly at the start of the second-half.”
