Maybe it’s because we’re a small island nation and we know our international team has been punching way above its weight in the world game, but rarely can one chastening and comprehensive defeat have so wildly flipped the narrative from wild optimism to doom and gloom.
Suddenly it feels as if the sheer scale of France’s 42-27 win last Saturday has brought more sharply into focus the need for Ireland to rebuild and the degree to which the other three provinces have never lagged so far behind Leinster. But while last Saturday may prove epochal it doesn’t have to be apocalyptic.
The 2023 Rugby World Cup always looked like a natural peak for that Irish team, and to that end the rebuild has already begun. On foot of Johnny Sexton’s retirement this season Caelan Doris has assumed the captaincy and Sam Prendergast the outhalf role.
Is it easy to over-react to Ireland’s French defeat?
There’s no doubt that Ireland’s attacking game was made to look blunt by the excellent French defence, and there was a hint of desperation when Prendergast twice ended Irish attacks with kicks into the end-goal, before his pass was intercepted by Thomas Ramos for Damian Penaud’s record-equalling 38th Test try.
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Prendergast was also targeted in defence, particularly when curiously placed on the blindside and defending behind the gain line for Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s initial walk-in. But he’s only 22. It was his first Test defeat. He was bound to have days like this, and more. He’ll learn from them, and Ireland need to continue their investment in both him and Jack Crowley. At least they have options there. The long-term successors to Conor Murray and Jamison Gibson-Park are harder to identify.
Perhaps this is compounded by the manner Ireland’s aspirations of a Grand Slam and historic three-peat were wrenched from them, especially in that 34-point salvo inside 30 second-half minutes.
It was the first time Ireland had conceded five tries at home since losing 45-7 to New Zealand in 2005, and only the second time in the Six Nations that Ireland conceded five tries at home, the other occasion being the 42-6 defeat in the 2003 Grand Slam shoot-out against England.
French rugby is booming. Their league is the biggest in the world. By rights they should be winning the Six Nations most years and given their team’s age profile that might well prove to be the case.
Granted, any one year is a small sample size. Even so the scale of the French under-20s' win over their Irish counterparts in Cork (the 22-12 scoreline scarcely begins to convey their dominance) only reinforced the feeling that Irish rugby will always be punching above its weight.
This is a golden French generation, not least from Toulouse, who provided 12 of last Saturday’s match-day squad along with four Bordeaux-Begles backs and four La Rochelle forwards amid a sprinkling of others.
Despite the late loss of James Lowe, Leinster provided 15 of Ireland’s match-day squad, and the events of last Saturday were a reminder of how well they did to come within a whisker of beating Toulouse in the Champions Cup final last May before losing in extra time. It’s doubtful any other team in Europe would have come that close, never mind beat Toulouse 40-17 and 41-22 in the previous two semi-finals.
If nothing else the events of last Saturday also underline the worth of Ireland’s 32-19 win over France in that Aviva cracker two years ago (when Mack Hansen, Garry Ringrose and Lowe all played) and the 38-17 victory in Marseille last year. If it wasn’t for Ireland, France would be nailed on for a fourth title in a row.
Even if they win their first title in four years (and just their second in 15 years) next Saturday in Paris by beating Scotland, this French side will assuredly go down in history as the best team not to win a Grand Slam, certainly in the Six Nations era.
Consider this. France beat Wales, Italy and Ireland by margins of 43-0, 73-24 and 42-27, scoring 23 tries in those three games and conceding six. They created but wasted five gilt-edged scoring chances in somehow contriving to lose 26-25 to England in round three in Twickenham. Credit to England for scoring four, and that profligate loss has fuelled the fierce, focused and clinical performances (and 7-1 benches) employed against Italy and Ireland. But Les Bleus should be looking for their fifth bonus point win next Saturday.
As it is their points’ difference is +106, which is on course to be the biggest in the Six Nations since that aforementioned, Martin Johnson-led World Cup-winning vintage of 2003 finally completed a Grand Slam with a points difference of +127.
Funny, isn’t it, how in one game a team’s experience can be credited in riding out a Welsh storm in the enclosed Principality, when recovering from an 18-10 deficit with a 17-point salvo. But then, a game later, they are no longer experienced. They’re just old. Perhaps this was accentuated by the electric Bielle-Biarrey, but the 21-year-old baby-faced assassin would have that effect on most opposing teams.
The audacity he showed in that crosskick deep inside his own 22 to Penaud indicated French confidence after weathering Ireland’s early storm to score first. As the three retiring Irish centurions and then the three half-centurions were introduced, many in attendance were struck by the French players coming on to the pitch and immediately sprinting to the end-goal and back.
French confidence would have been augmented by their inestimably more vocal and engaged travelling army of 12-15,000, which at times made it more like a home game and, by the end, a football arena.
One former French international among the crowd could not believe the ceaseless flow of traffic up and down the aisles with trays of beers.
The French have the best anthem in the world and by comparison Irish rugby fans lack songs and “chants” save for a ballad about a fictional man sentenced to transportation to the Australian penal colony at Botany Bay for robbing food for his family during the Famine! As for the pre-match and interval playlist...
But in its pricing and distribution of tickets the IRFU have generated a real match day problem at the Aviva which they have still not adequately addressed.
While the French fans were, as usual, brilliant visitors and evidently enjoy coming to Ireland, the pity is that the healthy rivalry has been embittered by Fabien Galthié’s petulant post-match citings of Irish players.
One can totally understand that Antoine Dupont is a beloved icon of French sport, but those comments and some of the French media’s coverage crossed the line and have, inevitably in this day and age, led to some awful abuse toward Beirne and his family.
It’s Galthié’s comments which were reprehensible.
gerry.thornley@irishtimes.com
