It’s been a long, long time since an Irish team has been rolled over in such a lopsided manner, especially at home. The home team and the home crowd, who were even more comprehensively second best, were left reeling as France scored 34 unanswered points in a blue blur of power and pace.
Unbeaten at home in the Six Nations since France won here behind closed doors in 2021, Ireland had seemed relatively well set, or at any rate highly competitive, when Dan Sheehan’s 43rd-minute try and Sam Prendergast’s touchline conversion put them 13-8 ahead. Even interim head coach Simon Easterby felt so too.
“We felt like going in at half time 8-6 down, we were well in the game, and we were confident that if we started well – which we did – in the second half, we could kick on and make them pay, in terms of our fitness and our ability to go well in second halves, which we have done in previous games.
“But, unfortunately, we probably didn’t take enough of our opportunities in their 22, and vice versa, we conceded too easily ourselves.”
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Ireland can have few complaints after such a sound beating by a French team whose performance made their somewhat self-inflicted loss in Twickenham even more inexplicable. They have a points difference of +106, compared to Ireland’s +13, but more pertinently are also two points ahead of Ireland.
Hence, even if Ireland beat Italy with a bonus point in Rome in next Saturday’s first game of the final day’s triple header, a win of any hue at home to Scotland in the evening’s finale in Paris will guarantee France the title.
Like many French teams, they are a brilliant side with momentum, although their flurry of 34 points began with a very contentious call by referee Angus Gardner, with little input from his assistants or the TMO.
When Paul Boudehent took a brilliant offload from Maxime Lucu and plunged over in the 47th minute, the French loosehead Jean-Baptiste Gros had paved the way with a pick and go through a gap created by Thibaud Flament taking out Peter O’Mahony beyond the ball.
The replays clearly indicated it was an illegal act by Flament, but somehow Gardner deduced that O’Mahony was “retreating backwards” and therefore, illogically, that this was no grounds for ruling out the try. Easterby clearly did not agree with Gardner’s interpretation.
“We didn’t defend well enough in our 22, but certain things that happen in a game, in an instance like that, which are going to prevent someone from potentially making a tackle, and being in a position to try and stop that.
“All teams try and do it to a point, they try to create a bit of space through the ruck and that allows the next person to pick. It’s to judge whether that contact on Pete was close enough to the ruck for them to feel like it was legal, which is probably about three or four metres from the ruck.
“That’s something we’ll reflect on and feed back to Angus Gardner and his assistant referees, and obviously the TMO came in and felt like it was legal.”
What’s more, on a previous review after that Boudehent try, Gardner sinbinned Calvin Nash for a head-on-head collision with Pierre-Louis Barassi.
“It could have easily just gone as a rugby collision and it could easily have not resulted in a yellow card. But I think the incident with Pete happens in the same set of phases, so that’s not reflective of that try, being down to 14 men.”
France had scored five points during Joe McCarthy’s sinbinning in the first half for a clearcut and ill-advised off the ball tug on Thomas Ramos’s collar, and they added another 10 during Nash’s absence with the fleet-footed Louis Bielle-Barrey scoring tries in each spell against 14 men.
Asked if his team had lacked composure after Boudehent’s try, Easterby said: “I don’t know about that. I think we were down a man and they probably got themselves in a position where they took advantage of that 15 against 14. We had it in the first half as well where we conceded a yellow card.”
Gardner had also been excessively dismissive of Caelan Doris in his dealings with the Irish captain, once asking him if he knew the laws of the game.
“We spoke before the game about picking my moments and not bothering him too much,” said Doris afterwards. “I didn’t feel like I did that. I felt I only approached him a few couple of times early on but it’s always a balancing act and I thought it was okay.”
