Irish pride after the fall
France 26 Ireland 21
David Wallace stretches for the line to score the second try for Ireland during the second-half of Saturday's Six Nations meeting at the
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Pride is a powerful motivator. And, at 26-6 and four tries to zip down 12 minutes into the second-half, pride kicked in for Ireland.
Of course, we could have done with pride taking over during the World Cup, or when the Italians got on top a week ago, but it was tremendous to see it restored in all its green glory at the Stade De France on Saturday.
Ireland still lost and, as Ronan O'Gara noted afterwards, moral victories should not be glorified or viewed as an end in themselves. However, given the overwhelming sense of foreboding and fear that accompanied us into this Paris pantheon of perennial pain, Ireland's second-half display, which nearly snatched victory from 1/5 favourites France, was massively encouraging.
Ireland played like a real team in the second half for the first time in nine games -- dating back to the unveiling of the new strip and the start of their World Cup build-up.
Future
Certainly, it muddies the waters in relation to Eddie O'Sullivan's future. The IRFU seemed to have set him up for a Six Nations fall and one suspects that not everyone in those corridors of power will be thrilled by an Eddie O'Sullivan side rediscovering its lost mojo.
Then there are those who'll claim the improvement was solely down to player-power and that O'Sullivan was taken out of the decision-making process in the build-up and on the day. However, such an argument is pure conjecture and, no matter where you stand in the great O'Sullivan debate, he fully deserves his slice of credit for Saturday's encouraging display, not least for belatedly selecting form players and for making proper use of his bench.
Ireland's revival was helped by Marc Lievremont assuming this game was in the bag and affording it training-run status by making a raft of second-half changes -- another sting for Irish pride. Those substitutions proved disastrous and contrasted sharply with O'Sullivan's canny introduction of Rory Best and Mick O'Driscoll, who both had enough time to make a difference and promptly did so.
The most stunning aspect to Saturday's resurgence was the Irish pack bossing the French in the second half, smacking them around on their home turf to the point where France conceded a penalty try as their scrum buckled under the strain. Incroyable. You're not supposed to do that to the French, certainly not in Paris.
Even the most fervent admirers of Marcus Horan and John Hayes would not describe the Ireland props as destructive scrummagers but, after doing an excellent containment job against the Italian grizzlies, they destroyed the French on Saturday.
"If there was one thing to come out of the World Cup it was that our scrum, against Argentina, France and Georgia was rock solid and we have built on that," acknowledged O'Sullivan.
In between the props, Bernard Jackman was excellent around the park and, although the darts will fly in his direction following several lost lineouts, he was not helped by the fact that France, and Julien Bonnaire, seemed to have the inside track on Ireland's calls and the whole lineout operation was sluggishly put together until O'Driscoll's introduction quickened up the execution.
Donncha O'Callaghan continued his post-Christmas revival with another immense display in the second row while the backrow came into its own in the second half and it looks a much more balanced unit now that Heaslip, superb throughout, is at eight and Leamy has relocated to the blindside.
The backline is a bigger headache. As promised, they took a deeper alignment and ran hard without ever breaking through conclusively but the defence out wide was shaky in the extreme with France looking likely to penetrate every time they spread it.
And, as we watched Emile N'Tamack getting his instructions on to out-half Dabvid Skrela and the rest of his outside men, it made one wonder again why we are still waiting for our own (promised) backs coach.
The tackle stats made for interesting reading. Thierry Dusatoir was top of the charts with 18 with four other Frenchmen making 10 or more.
Ireland did not have one tackler in double figures which emphasises that, in the first half, the tackles just weren't going in and in the second they really didn't need to.
The contrast between the respective back threes was stark, France had searing pace in Vincent Clerc, Cedric Heymans and Aurelien Rougerie while Ireland had three full-backs, not one of whom could match the French for pace and angles of attack.
Rob Kearney had another decent outing. He had his hands full with Rougerie, who set the tone with a slaloming run through a flotilla of would-be tacklers in the early minutes, and could do nothing to stop Heymans tearing onto a very fortunate bounce for the fourth French try of the day.
Geordan Murphy was culpable for botched tackles on several occasions and had a torrid time against France's hat-trick hero Clerc. If the Toulouse winger thrives against Ireland, facing France has the opposite effect on Murphy. He criminally kicked the ball away when the end-game, winning score scenario screamed out for a Munster, forward-inspired cycle of inch-by-inch pick-and-goes.
Brian O'Driscoll had an excellent game in the centre, without ever breaking free of his shacklers, and, while his captaincy credentials were boosted by the fightback, the instruction should have gone out to keep the ball in hand and not kick it away.
A victory would have been sweet, even aided by Lievremont's substitutions which saw the French fielding a halfback combination at the end whose combined age was only a couple of years more than Hayes' by himself.
But we had asked for a performance full of pride -- a shaft of sunlight to penetrate the gloom and we got it. Whether it is pride before a fall for Eddie O'Sullivan is moot.
He played his part in Saturday's encouraging display and that should be acknowledged. Ireland are playing like a proper team again and that's enough to be going on with for the moment.
FRANCE -- C Heymans; A Rougerie, D Marty, D Traille, V Clerc; D Skrela, JB Elissalde; N Mas, D Szarzewski, L Faure; A Mela, L Nallet; F Ouedraogo, T Dusautoir, J Bonnaire.
Replacements: D Szarzewski for W Servat (48), L Faure for J Brugnaut (48), A Mela for L Jacquet (52), F Ouedraogo for L Picamoles (66), JB Elissalde for M Parra (70), D Skrela for F Trinh-Duc (80).
IRELAND -- G Dempsey; G Murphy, O'Driscoll (captain), A Trimble, R Kearney; R O'Gara, E Reddan; M Horan, B Jackman, J Hayes, D O'Callaghan, M O'Kelly; D Leamy, D Wallace, J Heaslip.
Replacements: B Jackman for R Best (64), M O'Kelly for M O'Driscoll (55), J Hayes for T Buckley (80).
REF -- N Owens (Wales)
- Hugh Farrelly
