Where to start ? By the essential. The XV of France will not bring their personal best to 15 straight wins, will not become the first nation to chain two Grand Slams in the Six Nations Tournament and simply lost in Ireland (32-19) in a meeting where he took four tries. The Blues can forget the dream of arriving like bullets in the fall for their World Cup at home. But if they failed on several points, everything is not thrown away, very far from it, and there is nothing infamous to lose on the lawn of the first team in the world rankings after a a confrontation that will take time to forget.
Fabien Galthié spoke of touching “the sublime”? We have seen it at times. In the spans of Dublin as on the other side of the televisions on the continent, we lived a match where we struggled to breathe, loss of five years of guaranteed life expectancy. The kind of encounters where you look, groggy, at your watch during a break, wondering if this crazy thing in front of your eyes lasted forty minutes as required by the rules. Playing time felt? Impossible to say, but what a foot.
The merit, or the fault perhaps and we will come back to it, goes to this XV of France which left in the locker room its classic strategy, where it ardently returns the ball to the foot while watching for the opposing fault. No more dispossession, room for emotions and hands-on play. So, it gives crazy sequences. Like this unique tricolor try, started in confusion with a messed up ball by Thomas Ramos, continued in madness by Damian Penaud and Anthony Jelonch, and finished in genius by the winger (21st).
Penaud’s formidable try, Wayne Barnes’ questionable choices
But above all it gave a first period where the Blues only spent 16 seconds in the 22 meters, against more than five minutes for their hosts. The latter stuffed themselves with tricolor defensive errors, sometimes quite incomprehensible, to investigate three tries in less than thirty minutes. The second (21st) is frankly questionable, and we do not thank the Irish achievement for having waited for James Lowe’s try to be validated to clearly show that the winger had set foot in touch before flattening.
Arbitration always. It is also difficult not to curse when the referee Wayne Barnes does not flinch on this contact between Hugo Keenan and Ethan Dumortier, whose nerve of his second selection sends him spinning towards the opposing in-goal with a nice kick (51st). But given the number of hot situations and improbable defensive saves, it’s hard not to be happy to switch in the last quarter of an hour with only six points in sight (25-19).
Not dangerous enough in the second half
Comes this money-time full of tension. Where we suffer with these Blues, sometimes curled up in their in-goal. But still alive. Always with these Irish within gunshot, unless a converted try. But without ever really putting themselves in a position to achieve it. And with only three small points scored during these forty minutes, the Blues have never managed to reverse the trend.
It was finally Ireland, who folded the case, on the test of the offensive bonus signed Ringrose (72nd). Time for the Aviva to exult. His men can still dream of the Grand Slam. And made this team taste the defeat that we no longer saw losing. It could happen, and sorry for pushing an open door with both knees forward, but better now than during our possible reunion in the quarterfinals of the World Cup.
FRANCE-IRELAND: 32-19
Half-time: 22-16
IRELAND: tries by Keenan (9th), Lowe (21st), Porter (27th), Ringrose (72nd); penalties from Sexton (40th), Byrne (60th), (72nd); Sexton transformations (9th, 27th)
FRANCE : test of Penaud (18th); penalties from Ramos (5th, 15th, 33rd); transformation of Ramos (18th); drop by Ramos (62nd)
Temporary expulsion: Anthony (26e)