Impotent Ireland fail to rise to challenge
IT comes to something when we have to discuss impotence on St Valentines Day. But Ireland's men - well, their threequarters anyway - were guilty of the charge in the opening fixture of the 2004 Six Nations Championship.
They had enough ball to push France much closer and bury the memory of Melbourne and the World Cup defeat. For the Irish forwards, led by the striking example of new captain Paul O'Connell, took on the French pack and never flagged in their task.
O'Connell is surely destined to force his way into the Lions Test side in New Zealand next year. His performance here was of exceptional bravery and commitment. Outstanding lock forwards who do their work in the tight, complete in the loose and battle mightily in the line-outs are nothing new to a country which produced one of the game's greatest legends, Willie John McBride. O'Connell shows every sign of becoming another in that distinguished line and he will be the rock upon which coach Eddie O'Sullivan builds his 2007 World Cup campaign.
But if Irish rugby is to continue to move forward, serious thought will have to be given to a malfunctioning backline. Of course, it has to be said Ireland were without the injured Brian O'Driscoll, Denis Hickie and Geordan Murphy. But the alarming lack of quality in depth behind the scrum was painfully apparent, hard as Gordon D'Arcy tried to find some space.
The trouble was, the French defence could drift from the scrum or base of the rucks secure in the knowledge that Irish scrum-half Peter Stringer would not break. He tried hardly a single snipe around the fringes in the entire match, putting a serious burden on his colleagues outside him.
That would have been bad enough, but with Ronan O'Gara quite unable to match the pace and invention of his opposite number Frederic Michalak, Ireland's attack looked ponderous and predictable.
It was good enough in the first 20 minutes, when Ireland's tactical kicking aimed at putting the ball behind the French defence, largely succeeded. France were frustrated, especially with O'Connell mastering the early line-outs.
But once France began to win the loose ball and attack in broken play, it was a different game. Their inter-passing and clever switching of the angles of attack was delightful. Ireland continued to work and tackle where they could. But it was inevitable the French would break through and a final try tally of 4-2 told its own story.
French coach Bernard Laporte admitted that Ireland had given them food for thought throughout the first half at the end of which France led only 11-3. When O'Gara cleverly made a try for Anthony Foley four minutes after half time to cut the French lead to 11-10, France's poise was tested.
But Laporte said: "We never panicked at half time, although we had lost far too many balls in the first half. Our problem was keeping the ball in our hands and I was very satisfied with the way we did that more and more as the second half went on.
"Overall I am satisfied by the spirit shown by my team and the good points particularly in our defensive work. I would say we found ourselves after a difficult start and there is something to work on."
Laporte paid tribute to Ireland's powerful and determined drives in the loose. "Their driven mauls were very good and caused us great difficulty. It was a tactic in which they excelled and therefore I was pleased by the work of our defence in preventing any tries directly from that tactic".
It was far from a convincing performance by Ireland. Their incessant kicking for position throughout the first half smacked more of a damage limitation exercise than any attacking threat. The ball went down the back line, there was only one side playing any kind of true rugby and that was the French. They were increasingly comfortable with the ball in their hands, in glaring contrast to their Irish opponents.
Ireland had ambled out at the start as though they knew this would be another tough day at the office. They gave no real sense of fire and purpose in their bellies, yet the first 20 minutes was clearly theirs for the way they kept the French bottled up.
The trouble was, as all now agree, kicking away possession in the modern game is tantamount to a not very elegant suicide note. It could only delay the inevitable and once the French backs got to work, the inevitable became manifest.
Yet not even France could be entirely satisfied with their endeavours. Before a crowd of almost 80,000 packed into the Stade De France on a cold grey afternoon, France spluttered for much of the first half. They clearly missed the authoritative influence of their tired captain and scrumhalf Fabien Galthie. Had he been there, you sensed that France would have not taken anything like as long to put clear water between themselves and the disappointing Irish.
Ireland deserved credit for keeping on to the finish. But they will know that much hard work lies ahead.
