France 42; Ireland 27
With the benefit of hindsight, expecting an Ireland team missing three of its best backs and also minus the cornerstone of their scrum in Tadhg Furlong to be strong enough to go toe to toe with France at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday was undoubtedly expecting too much.
James Lowe pulled up injured in the warm up - he has been our best player this season. Add in the loss of the suspended Garry Ringrose, our best centre in reading and suppressing opposition danger, and Mack Hansen, who makes things happen by coming off his wing, and you can see that we had an uphill task before the kick-off.
Throw in the fact that we suffered two yellow card periods and the picture becomes clearer that the holders were on thin ice all day, especially as the French proved rock solid when we were on the front foot in the opening quarter of an hour when we threatened their line, and skipper Caelan Doris even got over but couldn’t touch down.
Doom and gloom? Maybe a little as the Grand Slam turns into a Slam junk, but overall we must give credit to the incredible bulk and power of the French pack and the beautiful speed and flair of their back line which by game’s end had carved us with their angles of attack and inter-passing skills.
The only blot of the landscape for the visitors was the injury to Antoine Dupont, which subsequently was diagnosed as a cruciate ligament injury that will sideline him for the rest of the season.
By the time he had departed, he had taken advantage of our first yellow card and his incisive pass to Louis Bielle-Biarrey who coasted in to make it 5-0, as the conversion from Ramos floated wide.
For all our early dominance, we had to wait until 33 minutes before we punctured the scoreboard with a Sam Predergast penalty after Tadhg Beirne was taken out of it off the ball by Francois Cros to make the score 5-3. You sensed it wasn’t our day when Adam Porter was penalized for obstructing and Ramos didn’t look a gift of three points in the mouth this time to make it 8-3.
After missing an earlier shot, Prendergast landed a monster penalty to reduce the deficit to two points at the break.
Of course we dared to dream on the restart when Sheehan got over for a typical touchdown. Jamison Gibson-Park, only a shadow of his usual dominating self, sent a good grubber kick which Ramos only half dealt with. Ireland piled in, won a penalty which was dispatched to the corner where Sheehan flew off the back of the maul to get in.
Prendergast’s conversion gave us a 13-8 lead. Ireland had been able to kick on from such platforms; in this instance we fell on our face.
Almost immediately sloppiness in dealing with the restart allowed Boudehent burrow over for France’s second try, which should have been disallowed as Thibaud Flament took veteran Peter O’Mahony out beyond the ruck. But then when has Australian referee Angus Gardner ever given us anything?
To make matters worse, Calvin Nash saw our second yellow (Joe McCarthy was reckless in giving away our first) of the day and you just knew there was no way back.
Ramos converted to inch the French ahead 15-13, and they were now on the front foot in no uncertain terms.
Bielle-Biarray showed his footballing skills with a lovely grubber, beating Prendergast with his blistering turn of foot to dive over and end the game as a contest.
Ramos converted again, and a short time later struck another successful penalty to make it 25-13.
We were now thinking if it would be possible to get a losing bonus point but that notion seemed remote when Jegou got in for their bonus point try on the hour mark.
That was a remarkable purple patch by the visitors who came from behind after Sheehan dip down to now lead by 19 points.
It got worse thanks to Ramos’ boot per another penalty with 14 minutes left.
We needed four scores to turn the game around and everyone knew that wasn’t going to happen. To our credit we didn’t throw in the towel and kept throwing punches and sub Conor Murray, on his final home test, was held up when over the line again.
To add insult to injury, Prendergast was read by Ramos who intercepted his pass to set up the elusive Penaud for the winners fifth try with the conversion making it 42-13 – a 29-point lead.
The final six minutes were something of a consolation - but a good one nevertheless.
Another departing great Cian Healy snook in for a try and Jack Conan, whose heft and rugby nous should have been used from the start, got over for a touchdown which were further rewarded by Prendergast’s conversions to reduce the deficit to 15 points. Still too much for anything out of the game and as the weekend subsequently turned out, England went nap against Italy in Twickenham to edge us out of second place by one point as it stands going into the last round of games where France play unpredictable Scotland, England play Wales and we go to Italy to take on the Italians.
The sheen has certainly gone off the season but there is still a championship to play for where we are now outsiders rather than favorites, which we would have been had we taken care of business at home last weekend.
Afterwards, interim Head Coach Simon Easterby said: “S**t happens. You go down one man, you might go down two men, but we can't let that be the reason why we concede those points. We need to make sure we're better at that.
“I don't think you ever go through your career without having a few lows and disappointments and I know that the players will bounce back. They'll be disappointed with what's gone on today but they will want to finish strong,” he said.
When asked if he thought we were becoming too easy for other teams to read when attacking their try line, he went on: “I don't think so. We weren't far away on a number of occasions and that means that we're probably doing the right thing most of the time. But we need to reflect on and look back at where we could have probably gone forward a little bit more from those entries into their 22.”
Referring to the 7:1 split of the French bench which paid dividends in the second half, he claimed: “There's a risk reward isn't there, but whatever you do, there's an advantage and a disadvantage. It's just whether you take the advantage when you've got it or not.
“But it’s genetics as well, we don’t produce guys like Meafou and these lads, so do we need to be a more clever team and out-think these teams because we can’t outmuscle them? I guess part of winning collisions isn't just about the size of people, it's about understanding how guys around the ball player can affect that as well. So that was part of our challenge."
As to the coming weekend, he pointed out: “It’s out of our hands. They're such good men, they work so hard, they play for each other, they play for their families and friends, they play for Ireland in a way that we've seen across the last couple of years which is an inspiration and it inspires us as coaches, it inspires the back room.
“I guess that's the challenge now, to put that disappointment behind them and get themselves together, stay nice and tight, understand why we didn't get the result today. Understand how we can get better next week and that's all they're ever about, just getting better whether we win or lose.”
Ireland: H Keenan; J Osborne, R Henshaw, B Aki, C Nash; S Prendergast, J Gibson-Park; A Porter, D Sheehan, F Bealham; J McCarthy, T Beirne; P O'Mahony, J van der Flier (for Doris, 64 HIA), C Doris (capt) Replacements: R Herring (for Sheehan, 68), C Healy (for Porter, 68), T Clarkson (for Bealham, 61), J Ryan (for McCarthy, 57), J Conan (for Van der Flier, 48), R Baird (for O’Mahony, 48), C Murray (for Gibson-Park, 68), J Crowley (for Aki, 55).
SCORERS Ireland – Tries: Sheehan, Healy, Conan Cons: Prendergast (3) Pens: Prendergast (2)
France - Tries: Bielle-Biarrey (2), Boudehent, Jegou, Ramos Cons: Ramos (4) Pen: Ramos (3)
