Tick tock. France were 80 minutes and many miles away from being knocked out of the Cup tonight. Tick, Allez Les Bleus, tock, Allez Les Verts. Tick, another error, tock, another penalty. Tick, another knock on, tock, another chance gone. Tick, a gasp of expectation, tock, a sigh of exasperation.
On and on it went. I was waiting the whole match, waiting for the week beforehand, waiting through the afternoon. Waiting for that shuffle of feet into that yard of space, that slipped tackle that would cause everyone to suck in their breath and then let it out in one tremendous roar of horror or appreciation. Waiting for that moment when France would be forced to look up to the clock and think: we've got only so many moments left to win this game.
For Ireland the wait for that break will now go on another week, and even then it might not come, just extend itself for another four years. There was very little in their performance tonight that suggested their last two games had been an aberration, that they'd been keeping their best back for the biggest occasion.
Sportsmen and women talk a lot about the degree to which time can seem to speed up or slow down in play: it's a common phenomenon in any activity involving intense concentration.
The clock didn't seem to go any faster or slower in this match, it just wound on round for 80 minutes, at the end of which the French fans were just as confident and happy as they'd been at the beginning, and the Irish side was just as far away from looking like a team that could make a big impression on the tournament.
Ronan O'Gara's kicking was awry, which was especially crippling given that was what he did with 50% of his possession. The tactic was flawed from the outset given that Clément Poitrenaud was at full back rather than the more susceptible Cédric Heymans.
The line-out combination lacked the security that it promised on potential and past performance, losing five of its own throws. Eoin Reddan's decisions around the breakdown were not in synch with the backs around him. Every time an Irish player broke the line I found myself instantly concerned that the ball was about to be turned over as the support lagged up behind him.
Worst of all, the lack of confidence that afflicted weaker areas of their team seems to have spread around the whole XV. The back division turned near chances into distant misses through sloppy handling. The failure to score anything other than a solitary drop-goal was the most depressing aspect of all.
And France, well the mood around me as I'm writing this is thoroughly ebullient, and with the team embarking on a lap of honour, their Cup may just be reaching its full stride. From the moment that Jean-Baptiste Elissade's fifth kick sent them 12-points ahead, and La Marseillaise rang around the ground at deafening volume, it was hard to avoid the impression that for France this competition has just begun in earnest.
They were thoroughly ruthless, and all the harder to like for it. They tackled magnificently throughout. The team does not yet capture the imagination as its predecessors have done, garbed in that funereal shade of blue. Frédéric Michalak's sweet kick to make the first try was a rare exception to their slightly staid style.
Otherwise they struck me as deeply pragmatic, which, if they aim to win the Cup, is no bad thing. Less pleasingly, though equally important for their ambitions, they stretch the laws as far as they allow - as critics once observed of the All Blacks, France run lines in mid-field that come perilously close to crossing.
Ireland look near-certainties to be dumped out of the Cup, and will have to hope that Argentina fail to score more than four tries against Namibia on Sunday. Tick tock the clock goes on, though for Ireland it looks like it has only a few more days to run, threatening to leave this potentially great team with nothing more than a bundle of thoughts of what might have been.
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