The giant wing’s double act against Italy took his Six nations tally to 17, moving him into third place on the all-time rankings. Only Brian O’Driscoll (26) and Shane Williams (22) have scored more.
In the Welsh lists he leapfrogged Gerald Davies, Ken Jones and Willie Llewellyn to move within one Championship try of Gareth Edwards and five of wing wizard Williams.
Everyone thought he was going to get his second hat trick when he galloped over again in the second half, but French referee Jerome Garces called him back for a knock-on in the buildup.
But it was still a great return for a good day’s work on his rehabilitation to the starting XV after an 11 month absence.
“To get a start for your country means everything and for me it’s all I work for,” said North, who now has 32 tries for Wales.
“To get a chance to play in a great stadium like this in front of a great bunch of fans was great. Two tries was a bonus, but I was gutted to see the third one disallowed.
“That would have been the icing on the cake, but a bonus-point victory puts us in a great position for next Saturday.
“It’s been good to get some rugby under my belt individually and as a team we’ve shown glimpses there today. But there were too many errors, too many penalties and that was too high for us.
“We know we’ve got a big challenge coming up and we’ll have to tighten up before next Saturday.
“We’ve had a few results that haven’t gone our way, particularly in Ireland last time out. We didn’t really feel like we fired a shot, but we were still in the game.
“Ireland have won the tournament now, but for us we have targeted bonus-point wins in our last two games to give us the best chance of finishing second.
“Today was a good start and if we tighten up a few things, we’ll be in a good place for next Saturday.”
