Worry now is major French backlash in Paris

The debate raged as to whether Ireland would have been better served by France losing in Murrayfield a week ago or narrowly winning, but in the event it seems as if there has been a dual effect.

Despite winning with another desultory performance, France have not only rung the changes again but have been copping it from all corners, all of which looks like ensuring a huge response from les bleus tomorrow evening.

Continuing criticism
Such has been the continuing criticism from former players and pundits alike, as well as the Toulouse and Toulon coaches Guy Noves and Bernard Laporte, they may have retreated into an us-against-the-world mentality in their Marcoussis bunker; witness Nicolas Mas storming out of a press conference earlier in the week.

They could be feeling every bit as wounded as had they lost to Scotland.

"In my 12 years here I've never seen a French team get such a slating, in newspapers, on television and on radio," former Leinster, Toulouse and Ireland backrower-cum-lock Trevor Brennan told The Irish Times yesterday.

“Their scrum, their line-out, their breakdown work, everything is being criticised, and I’ve never known a French team go into a game as such underdogs.

“It’s worrying, because I really fear Ireland are going to get a backlash.”

Joe Schmidt, who served four years as an assistant coach at Clermont, expressed much the same concern after confirming the return of Peter O'Mahony to the starting team.

Iain Henderson thus reverts to the bench, to the exclusion of Rhys Ruddock, and Ian Madigan has also been restored ahead of Paddy Jackson, to give additional cover at inside centre in light of the heavy knock Gordon D'Arcy took last week against Italy.

“We’re conscious of what’s been happening over there, the French press have been hard on them,” said Schmidt.

“It’s not great for us, there is nothing worse than an angry French team. That can galvanise them, they can grow a stronger unity and they can respond,” said Schmidt, citing how they almost beat the All Blacks in the World Cup final three weeks after losing to Tonga.

Schmidt has a good insight into the French mentality from his time at Clermont, who boast the longest current unbeaten home record in world rugby, and it's also worth noting that in the last dozen years France have lost three home games in the Six Nations, two to Wales and one to England, so Ireland are not alone in finding the Stade de France the hardest ground to win at in this tournament.

'Our patch'
"I suppose it's a bit Gallic; it's a bit tribal: 'This is our patch, this is what we defend' and they take immense pride in that.

“Often when a player is fatigued, they’ll mentally just switch off a little bit, but it’s a lot less likely to happen when you’re on your home patch, because you’ll dig a little deeper to stay focused and make sure that you do what’s required of you.

“And I think that would be the major difference for me.”

“Even the mentality of preparation during the week, there’s more of an edge, there’s more of, I guess, a necessity to be as ready as you can be because you just can’t afford to lose at home.

“They’re the ones that are not allowed to happen, and for us, we’d anticipate that’s going to be the French mentality regardless.”

Ireland’s Kiwi coach also admitted to being “a little surprised” France opted for a six-two split on the bench but could see the logic to it:

“I think when you have got someone of a similar size, it just allows fresh legs and to maintain a physical intensity to bash the opposition even when fatigue starts to tell.”

For this reason Schmidt admitted the endgame is liable to be “a big challenge” for Henderson and Jordi Murphy, whom he described as “very, very young men, and added: “to match up to that sort of physicality that is going to be brought off the French bench is going to be part of their growth, hopefully, that will give us a heads up and an investment for the future.”

The immediate future is the more pressing concern, albeit compounded by the daunting past, namely Ireland's record of one win in 42 years in Paris.

Clarity
With their coach engine gunning after their last stay in their own cocoon in Carton House and their afternoon flight to Paris, all they could do was take confidence from having clarity in their strategy, said Schmidt, "against what is going to be a very, very difficult team to contain."

Those sentiments were endorsed by captain Paul O’Connell, who described this fixture as “right up there” in his career.

“It’s the best position we could be in. Brian (O’Driscoll) spoke today about how you want to have your destiny in your own hands. It is going to be an incredibly tough game, but it’s exciting as captain to be in this situation.

“We don’t dwell on the past, we’re aware of it and it’s hard to get away from. We’ve been playing good rugby, we’ve progressed and when we played poorly against England we addressed it and fixed those problems. We know how tough it’s going to be, how capable they are across the field, but we’re in a good place.”