FOR two-and-a-half painful hours they were scared to dream. They had done their job - reaching and then surpassing the target set by the Welsh - dismantling Scotland in a manner no one had before in this Championship.
And then they were forced to wait, forced to pray that France would stop England from winning by more than 26 points. As they waited, they fretted. Ian Madigan certainly did. His last-minute penalty miss could have cost Ireland the Championship. Similarly Jonny Sexton was nursing regrets.
He may have played his heart out. He may have controlled the game for the 73 minutes he was on the park, but he blundered too, missing two kickable penalties. Would that prove costly?
In the end it wouldn't. France just about held on as England laid siege to their line in the dying moments, knowing a converted try would hand them the title.
They couldn't get it, falling short of the French line and that 26-point target, meaning Ireland were champions again for a second successive year - winners of back-to-back titles for the first time in 65 years.
You wonder where this team would be, though, had they blown it. With destiny in their hands, they coughed up countless, scoring opportunities in Cardiff which ultimately cost them a Grand Slam. Had the Championship been squandered too then we can only guess the psychological damage it would have caused.
Instead, we are looking ahead. A World Cup is on the horizon and the path to the semi-final looks manageable. France and Argentina block their route, but under a coach who has guided Ireland to 11 wins from their last 12 matches, the fear factor has long since gone.
It helps too that Sean O'Brien is back from injury and back at the world-class levels we last saw when he won the European player of the year award in 2011. Likewise, Sexton, arguably the number one fly-half on the planet, is operating on a similarly high level, as are Jamie Heaslip and Paul O'Connell.
Beyond that the officer class look impressive. For once, no one pokes fun at the Irish front-row. Better again, the reserve list of Jack McGrath, Sean Cronin and Martin Moore is almost as good as the front-line options of Cian Healy, Rory Best, and Mike Ross.
The rest of the pack is also in good shape. Devin Toner performed admirably for most of this campaign - but ran out of steam from Cardiff on. But worry not. Iain Henderson looks a million dollars plus there is Donnacha Ryan to count on.
Then there is the formidable back-row combination of O'Brien, Heaslip, and Peter O'Mahony, whose ability to play with passion and panache is undisputed. The backline too has class - Sexton, Tommy Bowe, and Rob Kearney providing that - plus it contains potential, Robbie Henshaw ticking that box.
So we dare to dream. And as we do so, we wonder what is holding the IRFU back from handing out a new contract to Schmidt, whose current deal is due to expire this time next year.
Scarred, perhaps, by the events of 2007, when they handed Eddie O'Sullivan a new four-year-deal just months before it became apparent that his ideas had gone stale, they were forced into a humiliating u-turn and costly pay-off less than a year later.
This isn't a like-for-like scenario. For starters, O'Sullivan had been in camp seven years- as either an assistant or a head coach - when that contract offer was delivered whereas Schmidt is just 18 months into his role. His voice is as fresh now as O'Sullivan's was tired, then.
More to the point, the New Zealander is clearly a master of his trade, possibly the best in the world - having won six trophies in the last five years, the most successful return in Irish rugby history.
In this context, the IRFU would be guilty of negligence if they allowed his contract run down and leave the door open for big-spending predators to come to snatch him away.
Clearly the team's greatest asset, Schmidt's superb man-management skills are matched by his ability to be tactically flexible. We saw as much on Saturday.
Having watched the Welsh conquer Rome, meaning Ireland had to win by 21 points, he placed an emphasis, from the word go, on attack. And it paid off, Ireland going 10 points clear after 10 minutes and 14 points ahead after 24. Having used the boot right through this Championship, they kicked away that tactic. Instead they ran. They used their wingers. And their heads. Scotland had no answer.
Or so it seemed. Then, in the 28th minute, man-of-the-match, O'Brien tore through the heart of the Scottish defence and a third try of the day seemed inevitable.
Bowe took up the baton from O'Brien and charged further forward. Ten metres shy of the line - and Irish rugby immortality - he was caught, Finn Russell producing the tackle which allowed Scotland, as well as England and Wales, to breathe again.
Greig Laidlaw cleared the danger and a possible 21-point lead was swept away. Two minutes later the gap was down to seven, Russell scoring an opportunist try to remind Ireland that in sport, there is no script. It was how Ireland reacted to that setback which highlighted how resilient they have become.
Somehow they managed to get the next score, a penalty via Sexton, but the remainder of the half was played on Scotland's terms as the hosts zipped the ball right across the width of the Murrayfield pitch to look like contenders, not the team heading towards the wooden spoon.
Crucially, though, they didn't score. Half-time allowed Schmidt to refocus minds, to remind his players how well they had played in that opening quarter, how they were dominating the scrum, how their line-outs were causing Scotland untold problems, how Henshaw and Luke Fitzgerald were tearing strips out of the Scottish defence.
He told them to stay calm and continue to believe. And the ploy worked. Within five minutes of the second half they were 23-10 ahead. By the end of the game they had surpassed the Welsh mark and left England with a huge target to chase.
That they came so close it suggests that ultimately Stuart Lancaster's team may perform better at this year's World Cup than Ireland. That's a story for another day, though. This one belonged to Ireland. And Schmidt.
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