Six Nations 2021: Iain Henderson says Ireland's 'backs now against the wall massively' after France defeat

Ireland failed to exploit Bernard Le Roux's first-half sin-binning with James Lowe being denied a try as France instead scored at the other end

Ireland skipper Iain Henderson admitted Sunday's 15-13 defeat by France has left the Irish with "our backs against the wall massively" in the Six Nations.

Following the opening defeat in Cardiff, Ireland needed a home win to keep any realistic title hopes alive.

Henderson pinpointed Ireland's failure to exploit Bernard Le Roux's first-half yellow card with Charles Ollivon instead scoring at the other end.

"When they were down to 14 men you have to capitalise," Henderson told ITV.

"You've got to punish people for having ill-discipline. We just didn't do that."

• Relive how France beat Ireland in Dublin

Henderson, captaining Ireland for the first time because of the absence of injured Johnny Sexton and James Ryan and Peter O'Mahony's three-match suspension, said his side's failure to score during that period was crucial with James Lowe going close only to put a boot in touch.

"Even a penalty in there or a try and that's a different looking second half.

"[It's] Massively frustrating. The biggest thing for me personally is that we had the opportunities to go and do it.

"When you are not taking those opportunities especially at home, you are not where you want to be to be beating teams like France," added the skipper, who had to go off for a time in the second half after a clash of heads with team-mate Cian Healy which required a couple of stitches above his right eye.

After Ollivon's try helped France lead 10-3 at half-time, Damian Penaud's 55th-minute score extended the advantage and while replacement Ronan Kelleher's fortunate touchdown gave the home side a potential lifeline, the visitors held on for a deserved victory after wasting a number of other glorious chances.

Henderson acknowledged that Andy Farrell's squad will now have to "go away and review what we've been doing".

"We've got a two-week break now (before the away game in Italy). A week to get away, refresh our heads, come back in and make sure we're really tuned in for fixing those mistakes.

"It leaves us with our backs against the wall massively.

"[We've] One game at home (against England) and two games away from home (Italy and Scotland).

"This team needs, as I've said, to review what we've done and make some pretty big fix-ups."

'We lost our way in third quarter - Farrell

While the French led by seven points at half-time, Ireland coach Andy Farrell felt his side's third-quarter performance was the period when the game got away from them.

"I thought we managed the game really well in the first half," said Farrell.

"We were doing very well set-piece wise and our game management was very good. I thought we just lost our way a little bit in the third quarter which got them back into the game."

However, Farrell insisted that he had no complaints with the effort put in by his players.

"There are a lot of lads hurting in there and the reason they are hurting physically as well as mentally is that they put their bodies on the line for their country.

"That was there in abundance. The effort is not the problem at all but it still hurts to lose the game."