The Six Nations is under way and already a couple of things are crystal clear. It is going to take a seriously good team to beat France in Paris in this year’s championship and watching them attack will be an absolute treat. Ireland were not so much beaten as outplayed by opponents who will be even more dangerous with a dry ball at their disposal.
Never mind the argument about brief in-game adverts during ITV’s coverage. Irish fans would probably have preferred a total 80-minute blackout or, failing that, an entire evening of cookery programming. Instead those back at home had to watch the visitors being repeatedly sliced and diced by seemingly ravenous hosts. Talk about eating your greens.
Had it been a drier evening it really could have been messy. As it was the spectacularly good Louis Bielle-Biarrey still helped himself to two sparkling tries and France’s close-quarters passing, kicking game and creative élan were sometimes sublime. Ireland arrived with a raft of injuries but, despite a second-half rally, they can now add bruised pride to the list. Their captain, Caelan Doris, rightly described it afterwards as “a very disappointing way to start the tournament.”
It will also be food for thought for the rest of the field. While France were without one or two key forwards themselves, you would never have guessed it. Les Bleus are not yet the finished article and eased off slightly with the match already won but their promise is unmistakable. Ireland, for their part, were made to look poor for the opening 40 minutes and will be grateful to their bench for bringing a little more second-half energy in this experimental slot for a Six Nations opening fixture.
And maybe there is a longer-term future for big-time Thursday night rugby. The light show inside the Stade de France made it feel like a Friday night in everything but name and the Marseillaise was sung with just as much gusto. When they want to put on a show in Paris there are few places quite as dazzling.
It was also great to see Antoine Dupont back on Six Nations duty for the first time since wrecking his cruciate ligament against Ireland in Dublin last year. Like everyone else, though, he was required to deal with conditions that were testing in the extreme. A sodden pitch and slippery ball can make life awkward even for the very best playmakers.
France, though, came close to conjuring something miraculous in the opening minutes. A rapid attack down the left was somehow kept alive by Bielle-Biarrey who showed exceptional footballing ability to dribble his side within range of the Irish line. The ball eventually rebounded forward off Charles Ollivon but it was an early sign of the threat this young French side can offer.
Ireland had been suitably warned. With only 12 minutes on the clock the hosts had their first try and what a cracker it was. For a moment Ireland seemed to have cleared the danger when Sam Prendergast hacked a ball up the touchline like a lower league right-back clearing his lines. France, though, managed to keep it alive and found the lurking Bielle-Biarrey, who slid out of a tap tackle by Prendergast and rounded the last man to add further gloss to his already shimmering reputation.
Ireland’s only option was to dig deep and battle like mad for everything. Even that strategy was barely enough as France poured forward again, denied a second try only when Nicolas Depoortère’s final pass with the line begging ended up in Prendergast’s hands rather than either of the two blue-shirted players outside him.
Again it was only a temporary reprieve as France neatly exploited the territorial platform to work the alert Matthieu Jalibert over. The mass rush to congratulate the Bordeaux fly-half said a lot about how the rest of his team see their No 10, regardless of his previously tepid relationship with the head coach, Fabien Galthié.
There was also no hiding the ability and impact of the young French lock Mickaël Guillard, another with a big international future ahead of him. Time and again he came looking for work, forcing Ireland to soak up a worrying number of early tackles. The 25-year-old Lyon forward can play, too, surging into the line to maintain yet another French counterattack before throwing a deft inside scoring pass to the busy Ollivon,
With Thomas Ramos kicking well it made it 22-0 at the interval with Ireland barely in the frame. Apart from one brief moment when Prendergast and Ramos were in a shoulder-to-shoulder sprint for a loose ball close to the French line there was barely a moment to make an Irish heart flutter with optimism. Even then it would not have counted, with the referee, Karl Dickson, ruling Prendergast had unfairly impeded his opponent.
France did not even concede a single first-half penalty and their fourth try was another collectors’ item, Ramos side-footing the ball to Bielle-Biarrey after Dupont’s little chip over the top. Ireland did finally save some face just before the hour mark when Nick Timoney crashed over and, shortly afterwards, his fellow replacement Michael Milne grabbed a second. It massaged the scoreboard pain slightly but did little to alter the wider narrative, a truth further underlined by Théo Attissogbe’s late score in the right corner.
