Imagine being told in advance of Thursday night’s Six Nations opener the following: Ireland’s set-pieces would hold their own, securing all four of their put-ins in the game’s 11 scrums and retaining all but one of their 17 lineout throws, and they’d only lose the penalty count 6-4. You’d have taken it and, indeed, presumed it would be the basis for a very competitive game.
Given it was anything but, and that France won every bit as emphatically as the 36-14 scoreline suggests, one can only deduce that Les Bleus were vastly superior to Ireland in all other aspects – be it attack, defence, the collisions, the breakdown, the aerial duel, winning the scraps on the ground and, most definitely, transitioning into attack in broken play.
There’s little doubt that this is an Irish team in transition and weakened by injuries, which has perhaps been compounded by being bulk suppliers of coaches and players to the Lions. Even so the contrast with both the last time Ireland were in Paris, and the last time they were in France, as against what unfolded on a rainy Thursday night on the Stade de France could hardly have been more stark.
All through Wednesday and Thursday you struggled to find green jerseys and, understandably given the home side riotously entertained the French fans, the Irish supporters could scarcely be heard.
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They didn’t find their voice when Ireland rallied in the second half and seemingly the IRFU’s allocation of 5,000 was all sold, which was a good turn out for a Thursday night abroad. Yet, of course, it was nothing like the 50,000 Green Army which invaded the French capital for three successive weekends at the 2023 World Cup.
That culminated in the epic quarter-final loss against New Zealand which felt, at the time and even more so now, like a natural peak for Ireland’s greatest ever side, akin to Irish rugby’s Icarus moment. Had they won that game, the Green Army would have been back for a semi-final and a final.
Even then, when returning to France two years ago for the corresponding opening night of the championship in Marseille, a Johnny Sexton-less Irish side played some brilliant rugby in a record 37-18 win, outscoring France by five tries to two.
Thursday night provided further evidence of the degree to which Ireland’s attack has regressed since those highs. Granted, as Andy Farrell said afterwards, it’s tough when a team is not winning collisions, but Ireland’s fault lines have gone deeper than that.
Players take the ball standing still too often, while Ireland are not as precise on the ball as they used to be. The Sam Prendergast offload which Josh van der Flier failed to gather and the Tadhg Beirne knock-on when not anticipating the outhalf’s short pass are the kind of mistakes this once precise attack rarely made.
They’ve also made it clear that they want to evolve a more effective kicking game and a sharper attack in transition. So it was that Ireland kicked the ball out of hand 39 times on Thursday. Farrell has countered that France did the same, and indeed they too kicked the ball 39 times as well.
But of theirs, Ireland had 27 short or tactical kicks, including contestables, compared to 17 by France. Kicking was a bigger part of Ireland’s attacking game, but well placed though Jamison Gibson-Park’s bombs were, the chasing Jacob Stockdale, Tommy O’Brien et al had no joy against the French back three.
As with all Fabien Galthié’s selections, picking the sometime fullback Théo Attissogbe was utterly vindicated and where Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s aerial work was a weakness in the World Cup quarter-final against the Boks, he’s improved this aspect of game out of sight.
Maybe it would have been different had any or all of Mack Hansen, Hugo Keenan and James Lowe were on the pitch, but you have to wonder if emulating South Africa, England and France is the way to go. Certainly when it comes to transitioning into attack in broken play, no team does it better than France and Ireland’s tactics contributed to this.
In defence, Ireland missed 38 tackles for a 67 per cent completion rate, leaked nine line breaks (while making just four) and there were 19 French offloads to four.
As Farrell lamented afterwards, Ireland’s defence was also too passive and permitted French to offload almost at will, although they are just vastly better versed in an offloading game than Ireland have ever been. In striving to be disciplined the Irish defence lacked bite. It’s a fine line.
Admittedly, there was no Antoine Dupont in Marseille, and he wasn’t there either when France were beaten by a 14-man South Africa last November. On Thursday he gave a masterclass in a selfless scrumhalf servicing his team. Indeed, only five of that starting XV against the Boks lined up at kick-off and the magnificent Charles Ollivon was injured then too.
As much as this was about Ireland performing badly, it was also about how good France were on the night. Galthié had something of a reset, removing three pillars from his team, including two of his November captains and reverting to a younger, lighter more dynamic pack to supplement a backline with three world-class playmakers, a young, powerful midfield and pace to burn on the edges.
This was a different kind of beating than the bludgeoning of last March in Dublin, when France hit Ireland with a 32-point blitz in the second half, compared to the 29-point salvo in the first half in Paris. But it’s the two combined, either side of the autumnal losses to New Zealand and South Africa, which make this part of an undeniable downward trend.
It may well be that Les Bleus would have beaten any team last Thursday night and that they go on to win a Grand Chelem. All is not lost for Ireland, but salvaging a good Six Nations is now a more difficult task.
