Flat and pedestrian is the only way to describe Saturdays game against Italy. As series openers go it was pretty predictable - remember Wales last year. The result was never really in doubt - but the team got drawn into a slugging match with Italy. It was very different to the try feast in Rome last year. Ireland also had to face up to the post World Cup hopes and expectations. The questions raised are still unanswered.
Girvan's Try, Uploaded by M+MD.
Contrast France whom we face into next week. They had a pretty sparkling away performance against Scotland. Yes it was just Scotland but the French had their own World Cup doisappointment and they are not supposed to travel well.
With these 2 contrasting performances we face each other next week-end. Perverse logic says that just when we should expect to be hammered then we will be brilliant - didn't I say something like that back in September? Hope springs eternal - at least the optimist spend some of their time celebrating - prematurely!
But Ireland did win (and a win is a win) and we did manage to create a good number of opportunities in the first half. The Leinster guys who came off the bench got some 6 Nations time and did well. Bernard Jackman, Jamie Heaslip and Robert Kearney have a reasonable chance of starting next weekend.
In Paris on saturday with just seven days interval (just six for the French), there is a rejuvenated French team waiting under Marc Lievremont and Emile N'Tamack. As only the French can do, they have reinvigorated themselves within one period of eighty minutes. The players played with a freedom not seen since before the onset of Bernard Laporte. The confidence of that French performance will mean that if they continue to get the bounce of the ball (as they assuredly did in Edinburgh), then it could be back to the grim old experiences of yore for Ireland in Paris.
That said, this is a ridiculously experienced Irish outfit and they will analyse that French performance and prepare a plan to counter this new 'old' French style.
Against a side like this French one, one wonders if we might be better off mixing it up somewhat against them in order to confuse them, rather than face death by a thousand cuts.
It would be lovely to think that we could take them on at their own game and run at them. The irony is that this may not be the best way to win the match.
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