Head coach Andy Farrell said it was ‘so fitting’ that Jonathan Sexton broke Ronan O’Gara’s record with a memorable try under the posts to become Ireland’s all-time top points scorer.

O’Gara (1083 points) leapfrogged David Humphreys (560) at the top of the scoring charts back in February 2006, and now the mantle has passed to another talismanic number 10. Sexton’s try and 11 points from the tee against Tonga took his career haul for Ireland to 1090.

Adding in his 2013 try for the British & Irish Lions against Australia, he has moved above Welsh legend Neil Jenkins into fourth place on the list of highest scorers in international rugby history.

Sexton claimed the Irish record in style with a cleverly-worked 37th-minute score that secured Ireland’s second bonus point of this Rugby World Cup. The rush of his team-mates to congratulate and engulf him behind the posts spoke volumes.

“I was just happy to score the try,” admitted the Ireland captain, modest as ever. “I think one of the lads said it to me (about breaking the record) under the posts. I actually thought I might have got it on the kick before.

Look, it’s something when you retire you can look back on and be very proud of. I think my little boy (Luca) will be over the moon. He was talking about it during the week.

“It probably means more to him! He’ll chase it down now, and so will the other 10s. It’s there to be broken now and I’m sure some young guys will be eyeing it up.

“I’m very proud to do it, but tonight it was more important getting the win and moving on to what is such a massive game (against South Africa) this coming week.”

Sexton has started France 2023 in impressive form despite his lack of recent game-time. He has racked up three tries and 40 points in all across the first two rounds, with only England’s George Ford (41) ahead of him.

The St. Mary’s College clubman has already topped his tallies from previous World Cups – 21 points in 2011, 31 points in 2015, and 26 points in 2019 – but is acutely aware that scoring opportunities will be much more difficult to come by against the Springboks.

Asked about the minutes he had gotten under his belt and the drive to get back to peak form, he admitted: “The proof will be next Saturday if I’m in good form. You’ve got to go do it in the games. There’s no point saying you’re feeling good or whatever.

“I just take it day by day, make sure I recover well, turn up to training Monday, Tuesday, and try and help put the plan in place to take on South Africa.

“They’ve hit a great vein of form and it’s going to be a huge challenge for us, but one that we are really excited about. Hopefully we’ll be ready for it.”

The fine-tuning of the Irish lineout had the desired effect with 21 wins and just two losses on their own throw. They also stole two of their opponents’ throws, while the scrum was also rock solid against a mammoth Tongan front row.

The pack put in a big collective shift, particularly Tadhg Beirne and Josh van der Flier, who both played the full 80 minutes, and Peter O’Mahony (75) and Tadhg Furlong (71) were not far behind. Having been replaced, tighthead Furlong had to return to the pitch due to Finlay Bealham’s HIA.

Sexton played the first half in Nantes before Ross Byrne came on at out-half for his first World Cup appearance. The Ireland skipper praised the forwards for ensuring that ‘the lineout was excellent, the scrum as well’.

“We got a lot of territory and field position from the set piece. The forwards laid the platform and we got a couple of nice tries in both halves off first or second phase. Very pleased with that.”

It has been a real positive to see the Irish attack put away a good chunk of their chances, whether it is through Mack Hansen’s brilliant sidestep and burst of pace, or that lung-busting support run from Beirne that saw him score right at the death against Romania.

Bundee Aki (4 tries), Beirne and Sexton (3 each) have been regular try scorers, with the latter saying: “We’ve trained incredibly hard all summer, so we’re fit enough and able to get ourselves into positions to score tries and to put the opposition under pressure.

“We’ve done that well at times over the first two weeks. There was plenty of stuff that we’ll look back on early in the game where we’re going to need to be more accurate and clinical next week.”

Meanwhile, Farrell (pictured above with Tonga’s Chris Boyd) was pleased with how his side turned their pressure into points on a humid night. They went past the half-century mark with four tries during the closing 22 minutes.

They also got four more World Cup debutants (Byrne, Bealham, Ryan Baird and Craig Casey) on the pitch, and Dave Kilcoyne and Robbie Henshaw both returned from injury.

Farrell says they are ‘building nicely’ on the back of their eight-try display in Nantes, benefitting from ‘getting a little bit of continuity, getting more game-time, getting the job done and getting people off at the right time’.

He was delighted to see Sexton add another milestone achievement to his collection. Apart from his scoring prowess, he says the thing that stands out about his captain is ‘how he makes people feel and how he leads the team, and he’s one of the best in the world at that’.

Speaking about the try which saw the Dubliner break O’Gara’s longstanding record, the Wigan man commented: “He’d nine points and equalled the record before he scored the try, hadn’t he? You just knew when we got held up, and we were set to play that play. It’s something that we’d obviously practised during the week.

“He knows which ones to follow! He followed Conor (Murray) really well, and it’s so fitting that he broke the record with a try like that.

“The record’s fantastic but he’d say that’s his job. But it takes some doing. To us, as a leader and as a player, he’s a lot more than a points-scoring machine.

“How he prepares his team and gets them up for absolutely every game selflessly is more important to, I would think, him and certainly to us.”

Ireland ended the opening weekend of Rugby World Cup 2023 exactly where they want to be – sitting at the top of Pool B with five points and a very healthy points difference of +74.

They had some setbacks along the way, with Robbie Henshaw’s pre-match withdrawal for a hamstring issue followed by Gabriel Rupanu’s early try for Romania, but Andy Farrell’s men went on to score seven unanswered second-half tries.

Having missed out on squad selection for both England 2015 and Japan 2019, it was a special moment for hooker Rob Herring to mark his World Cup debut with a try from a five-metre tap penalty.

Speaking after the 82-8 bonus point win in the baking Bordeaux heat, he said: “It was a good start to the tournament, certainly a lot more to come. We can build from this performance.

“We obviously had a few things that we would like to fix, some losses of possession and stuff like that. But I thought the second half was really good.

“We scored some really good tries, so it was a good team performance all round. Tonga next Saturday is going to be a good challenge for us and we’re looking forward to it already.”

The Rugby World Cup performance analysis statistics from the first round showed that Ireland had the quickest ruck speed of all the teams, at just 2.17 seconds, while they also made the most metres (1091), line breaks (21), and offloads (23), and had the highest gain-line success rate of 67%.

What will grate for Herring and the rest of the forwards is that they lost four of their 12 lineouts, with the Romanians coming up with two steals. On the negative side too for Ireland were 13 bad passes and 17 turnovers conceded.

They have plenty of time to tidy up those areas for their round two tussle with Tonga. The 9pm kick-off time at the Stade de la Beaujoire should create a buzzing atmosphere under the floodlights, and the vocal Ireland fans are sure to make their presence felt.

“After the game when we were doing the lap (of the ground), you can kind of soak in the atmosphere a little bit,” noted Herring, who has scored three tries in his last five Tests.

“The travelling support we have is incredible. You could hear it during the game and they were singing after the game. It just reminded me of when we won the Grand Slam (earlier this year).

“Like we said earlier, we’ve probably got the best travelling support and we certainly heard them out there today.”

Herring’s Ulster front row colleague, Tom O’Toole, also came on to make his World Cup debut. He played the final half an hour against the Romanians, replacing Tadhg Furlong on the tighthead side of the scrum.

The 24-year-old acquitted himself well, doing his bread-and-butter set-piece work as well landing a dominant tackle and showing good hands to put Jeremy Loughman breaking into space.

Coming barely seven months on from his first Six Nations appearance, O’Toole said of his maiden World Cup outing: “First World Cup for myself and a lot of people in this group, there was definitely a bit of nervous energy this morning which is good.

We knew that Romania were going to be a passionate side. Coming into this game there was definitely a bit of excitement. Also a bit of nerves, but I think we handled it well.

“Obviously they scored first which wasn’t ideal early on, but I think we’re really proud of the guys in the group, the way we stayed composed, came back and put a performance in that we were happy with.”

The last of the Ulster players involved against the Oaks was Iain Henderson, the province’s captain. A second half replacement, he appeared in the mixed zone afterwards with a large shiner under his right eye.

Plenty of bumps and bruises were anticipated against a physical Romanian outfit, and with hard-hitting Tonga awaiting in Nantes next weekend, Henderson is ready to play his part, whether that is as a starter or coming off the bench again.

The 31-year-old, who captained the team for last month’s warm-up wins over Italy and Samoa, commented: “This is a brilliant squad to be part of. The staff have their plans sorted, and it was great this week training and prepping the starters as best as possible.

“So, look, whatever Paulie (O’Connell) and ‘Faz’ decide to go with, I’ll be right behind to make sure we are able to put the best performance in.

“At the same time, like I definitely want to be starting. But I’m ready for whatever happens and if it’s decided that I’m not playing, I’m still going to bring the best version of myself to training and make sure the guys that do start, or come off the bench or whatever, have the best prep so that we can hopefully get a good performance like we did, or we can do next week.”

Playing at his third World Cup, Henderson’s experience and leadership skills are a big asset to an Irish pack that started the tournament with nine World Cup newcomers. They include hooker Dan Sheehan who is coming back from a foot injury.

Mindful that there are tougher tests to come, Henderson added: “Romania got off to a flying start but I thought the guys who were on in the first half did an unbelievable job of just staying level-headed and moving on to the next task.

“After that we just kept the pressure on and took the opportunities when they were there, but probably left a few out there as well.”