SHAUN Edwards believes that Wales’ defensive display during the rousing 22-9 RBS 6 Nations triumph over Ireland was their best in his time with the national team set-up.

Wales bounced back from a disappointing performance in Scotland to raise the roof at the Principality Stadium last Friday, earning a win which moved them up to sixth in the world rankings.

Edwards has also admitted he never expected Wales to limit the Irish to just nine points, or prevent them from scoring a try.

When asked where the rearguard action against Ireland ranked in his nine-year tenure as Wales defence coach, he said: “I think it was the best one because of the standard of opponent.

“They’ve been averaging 30-odd points a game recently.

“I didn’t think it was possible to keep a top-four ranked team to single-digit points.

“Sometimes I set the boys targets but never in my wildest dreams would I have said nine points against Ireland.

“They did it and I think you could see the ferocity of our frontline defence.

“The double hitting by our back row in particular was absolutely outstanding.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work on the props and hookers trying to compete on the ball like a back rower.”

He added: “I don’t think they (Ireland) have been try-less in a Six Nations game since 2013.

“The way the game is refereed it’s very pro-attack, as you can see with the number of tries being scored.

“I didn’t think it was feasible to set them (the Wales players) a goal of nine points but they did it, so obviously that was fantastic.”

The straight-talking defence guru will be hoping for more of the same on Saturday when his men take on France in Paris with second place in the championship their target.

And there are areas he feels need to be worked on to make the Welsh defence even tighter.

“We’re still getting caught for high tackles,” he said. “We’ve given away 12 points in the whole competition for high tackles.

“France are a team who look to offload, so that means they are going to run high, and to offload you’ve got to run high and carry the ball high.

“We have to be conscious of not getting on the wrong side of the referee.

“They’re a very potent attacking force but for some reason it hasn’t turned into a large number of tries for them so far.

“They probably have more offloads than anybody in the championship and virtually as many line breaks as any team.

“Maybe their finishing hasn’t been quite as exact as they want it to be.

“You can just see them clicking against somebody one day and I hope it’s not us.

“It’s my job to make sure it’s not us they click against.”

Edwards indicated that Wales won’t be making changes for the Stade de France clash this weekend, stating that “the time to be blooding players is definitely on the summer tour”.

Meanwhile, Edwards has played down claims he made a rude gesture when celebrating Jamie Roberts’ late try in Friday’s match.

“It was just a harmless hand gesture,” he said.

“I was just throwing a punch in the air and people are talking about that instead of an incredible defensive performance when Ireland were kept try-less for the first time in four years.”