Reality bites.
As the French match started on Friday night, I was, on balance, glad not to be there – that was a reflection of how I rated our chances at that time. I can remember travelling to Parc de Princes in 1996 and while we had a good week-end in
Paris it was another miserable defeat to the French that year.
Just fifteen minutes into the game I had a completely different feeling – perhaps this was the game to be at. The Irish were aggressive and were creating chances. They were not the team that played against
Namibia or
Georgia – it looked like the team that played
England and
Italy last spring.
Then the mistakes started to creep in and the penalty count gave
France a nine point lead. Just before half time some good Irish pressure gave us advantage well inside the French half. RoG kicked a drop goal and suddenly we had a match again. But another error and a French penalty just before half time restored the status quo. The rest of the story in the second half was just a sad re-run… the French got another penalty and began to feel comfortable – remember they were playing for survival – they ran in 2 tries including a very soft kick and catch. Game over and now the dreamers need to really get creative.
But we can be creative – its easy really – score four tries and win by more than seven points and
Argentina go home and we get to play
New Zealand. Sounds easy really!! Perhaps we could beat
New Zealand and go on to …… well maybe not!
Official
Match Report
Post match quotes:
Eddie "France built a lead based on our indiscipline"
Post match quotes:
Brian "The scoreline doesn't lie"
Post match quotes:
Eddie later "a bit of a mountain to climb"
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