Paris fiasco a 'disaster' for Irish fans
Cian Healy has declared that Saturday night's farcical scenes in Paris were a "disaster" for Irish supporters after Six Nations officials confirmed that the Ireland-France game would not be played this weekend, writes David Kelly.
"We wanted to play this game after the defeat to Wales," said prop Healy, as French clubs yesterday began lobbying to have the game played in June.
"We'd had a good week building up to it. We can still play in the future and hope we can have the same build-up as this week. We can still build up the momentum.
"Hopefully we can get the same level of supporters over.
"It was a bit of a disaster for them, making the effort to get over there, especially the way everything is in this country. So that was probably the saddest aspect of the whole affair.
"It doesn't really reflect well on the sport. Things happen, though, and that call had to be made in terms of player safety. We wouldn't have wanted to lose one of our top players for falling on a bit of ice.
"So from that point of view, we had to support it. It's not my call when the matches are on. I just show up and play. Maybe it would have been better earlier, but it is what it is. I just get on with it."
Healy believes Ireland can still win the championship, despite the setback of the late defeat to Wales in Dublin.
"I think the more we train together and the more we play together, the better we're going to get. I wouldn't say we're on a downer or anything. We've played some seriously good rugby in the recent past," he said.
"And I think there's something big coming in this team. I certainly felt there was a bloody big one in us on Saturday.
"That's easy to say in hindsight, I suppose. But we're excited about the rest of this campaign because the vibe in the camp is amazing and the training has been brilliant."
Irish Independent
