THE “VENI, vidi, Visa” days are over and, for a few eye-popping minutes on Saturday, it seemed the “vici” days had gone too. The flip side is that suddenly Ireland are where they supposedly can be most dangerous: backs to the wall and underdogs at home.
The problem is that France, too, are back where they belong: rejuvenated and confident after one game.
After flirting with a first Six Nations defeat to the Azzurri, Ireland’s ropey, 13-11 win left them with issues galore as they face a French side who rediscovered their ballast in the scrums and up front, and ran at Scotland with power and stunning depth and width to win, 34-21, a match of much higher quality.
The Irish management are sure to look at the balance of their backrow, with a view to developing a lineout option against a French backrow that could again include Imanol Harinordoquy and Julien Bonnaire and will also have to look at a quicker service from scrumhalf.
There was plenty of grunt and grind from the backrow of Denis Leamy, Seán O’Brien and David Wallace, as Ireland sought to move the ball wide off these target runners. Mistakes and missed opportunities undid much of the good approach work, which might colour their performance, but the carriers seemed more intent on crashing into contact – tackling with the ball, you could almost call it – than using their footwork and exploring space. A mere six offloads and two line-breaks for all their possession tells its story.
Of the walking wounded, there is a chance one or more of Jamie Heaslip, Stephen Ferris and Andrew Trimble might come back into the reckoning when they are assessed over the next day or two, but beyond that Declan Kidney and co have relatively untried, young options at their disposal.
Reflecting on the performance, Kidney admitted: “We had a few wild passes, and then, once we did that, we just tried harder and harder again and that’s a frustration. But it’s a positive frustration (trying hard), we just have to calm down and hang onto the ball and not force things as much as we were doing.”
Such mistakes would be much costlier next week. “Yeah, if we turn over the ball as often as we did today, France will be delighted with us. We just have to make sure that we don’t do that.”
Kidney acknowledged they could have had more of a balanced lineout, incorporating an option at the tail, particularly given the ambitious game they are trying to play. “We were playing positively but we were probably losing the field position battle a little bit, and that was allowing them to stay in the game. I thought Italy came back at us just towards the end of the first half and towards the end of the second half then.
“You know, if you leave a side with the feeling that they have something to play for, that’s just going to get the adrenalin flowing. They scored the try, managed to get the score that they would be elated with, and we managed to gather the kick-off then and do what we did from that. What was I happiest about? That was the moment that I was happiest with.”
Much of the focus before, during and after the game centered around French referee Romain Poite. Bizarrely rated among the elite panel of referees in world rugby, in the last quarter – indeed for much of the match – it seemed the obtrusive official only had eyes for Ireland. This was especially true of the scrums, where he blithely overlooked scrum feeds by the two Italian nines which were practically into the secondrow.
Following the revelation that he had allegedly written to the Italian federation apologising for his handling of this same fixture last season, it’s a wonder how he was chosen for this game.
In any event, not surprisingly, the penalty count went 13-5 to the home side, with Ireland penalised six times in scrums. Even connoisseurs of the frontrow’s dark arts couldn’t figure some of his decisions.
“Most of the penalties did seem to come in the scrum but we’re told that there is an avenue for us to approach this and we have been asked to trust it and that is what I’ll do,” Kidney said. “I’ll make my case to the appropriate parties, it was a tough game to adjudicate on but I’ll approach that (avenue) first and see what type of reaction I get from it.”
Kidney had been told of Italy coach Nick Mallett’s claim regarding Poite’s letter on Friday but didn’t appear to obtain a clear answer from the French official as to whether he had done so. “When I asked him, he just said that it was the coach trying to put pressure on him.
“It’s an old one,” said Kidney of Mallett’s trick. It seemed to pretty much work, too.
SIX NATIONS
NEXT ON THE LIST
Saturday
England v Italy, Twickenham, 2.30pm
Scotland v Wales, Murrayfield, 5pm
Sunday
Ireland v France, Aviva Stadium, 3pm
