RUGBY/ SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP: LAST WEEK'S openers were the hors d'oeuvres. Now, after what has seemed much longer than a week's verbal sparring, it's time to rumble as the leading sides in Europe go toe to toe.
As an aside – and it truly is an aside in the greater scheme of things – Ireland can move up to third in the world rankings if they win, or drop to fifth below France if they lose.
More to the point, at stake is both teams’ designs on a grand slam in what could prove to have been a championship decider.
Not that it needed it, but the verbal sparring continued virtually up to the first bell. The French don’t exactly do modesty, and they’ve had an awful lot to say this week, all the while cranking up the heat on referee Wayne Barnes.
“The Irish cheat intelligently,” ventured 21-year-old scrumhalf Morgan Parra. “We have watched the video, it’s well worked, well done. A hand which delays the ball coming out, the little step offside in defence which stops you from attacking. We French, if we did that we would be penalised. But we know not to do it.”
Asked if he admired such savvy, Parra said: “No. Of respect, yes, for a team which hasn’t lost for 12 matches and knows how to play a good game. But not admiration.”
If Ireland’s unbeaten run has been a recurring reference point, so too as been their sole win in this city since 1972, courtesy of Brian O’Driscoll’s hat-trick in 2000.
There’s a glint in the great man’s eye this week, and it’s as if all the hype about Mathieu Bastareaud has whetted his appetite for this one even more.
O’Driscoll played down any talk of revenge for Thierry Henry’s la main de Dieu yesterday. “To the Irish public in general it would, but, ourselves, we see it as a Six Nations game. We’re not getting caught up in revenge.”
Nonetheless, that Bastareaud is William Gallas’ cousin adds to the feeling that this could be a critical match-up.
In any case, after a light captain’s run at the Stade de France, where half of the freezing pitch was under cover, O’Driscoll said: “You have to realise what a great place it is to play, and how it’s a fast track. It’s the way you want to play rugby. It does create that added excitement that you need, because you realise you have to bring your A game to Paris if you’re to survive with the French.”
One imagines it’s the same for Ronan O’Gara and the others. And with Gordon D’Arcy having become the team’s eighth thirtysomething this week, this may represent the last chance for the golden generation to triumph in Paris.
“If you’re not excited about this then you’ve no reason to be here,” said coach Declan Kidney. “It’s the ultimate challenge in the Six Nations when you look at their home record – they’ve lost two home games in eight years (they won the other 18). Not too many sides reach anything next or near that.”
And then, of course, there’s Ireland’s bête noire of recent times, Vincent Clerc, who has scored seven tries in five meetings.
Sidelined for almost eight months after he ruptured cruciate ligaments in his left knee in April 2008, he appears back to his best – damn and blast him.
If Ireland have learned anything from previous treks here, it is to weather the first 20 minutes. The longer they can stay in touch, the more frustrated the home side will become. More to the point, so too their fickle Stade de France fans.
Alternatively, were the French to score the first try and pull ahead early on, then the passes will start to stick, there’ll be a strut in the cockerel step and “allez les bleus” will reverberate round the ground.
Another key to the ebb and flow of the psychic energy will be the first scrum or two. Nothing swells Gallic fervour more than a rumbling scrum.
But if Ireland are within a score entering the last quarter, there has been plenty of evidence, even in some of the failed comebacks here recently, that les verts may be fresher and fitter over 80 minutes, and mentally stronger.
One senses they’ll have to score a few tries in a relatively high-scoring game to win, but there was also abundant evidence in France’s win in Murrayfield – 15 missed tackles – that their blitz defence can be exposed.
Two of Ireland’s three tries in Croke Park last season were scored off lineouts – O’Driscoll’s was a classic strike move – and they’ll have a few moves designed for O’Gara to give the captain a run at Bastareaud’s outside.
Ireland will have to be stealthy though. If they don’t break through within two or three phases, the kicking of O’Gara, O’Driscoll and Rob Kearney will come in to play, for, aside from anything else, Ireland won’t want to engage the French in a footloose and fancy game.
Scrums will offer even more opportunities to give O’Driscoll a run at Bastareaud, which makes their solidity imperative.
The French pulverised the Springbok scrum last November (admittedly when Fabien Barcella, now out injured, was destroyer-in-chief). And they put such a squeeze on Ross Ford last Sunday that he became airborne.
Ominously, Barnes penalised John Hayes and the Munster scrum heavily when the Clermont loosehead Thomas Domingo got going in the pool stages last year.
The concerns about the English official also date back to his remarkably uneven performance in the decisive Wales-Ireland game at the Millennium Stadium, when the penalty count was 14-5 to Wales.
Nor, curiously, will they have been allayed by the recent Munster-Northampton game, when his penalty count was 15-5 to the home side.
In the goalkicking department, you’d rather O’Gara than Parra (or Alexis Palisson), but that won’t count for much if Barnes’ tally is similarly lop-sided.
The odds favour another home win. Victory would arguably be the best result of Kidney’s reign.
But he has often brought Irish underdogs to France and returned triumphant, dating back to the Under-19 World Cup in 1998 with O’Driscoll in the side.
It’s primed for a Kidney mugging.
Venue: Stade de France Kick-off: Today, 4.30pm (Irish) On TV: Live on RTÉ 2, BBC 1
Overall head-to-head: Played85, France51 wins, 5 draws, Ireland29 wins.
Last five meetings: (09) Ireland 30 France 21; (08) France 26 Ireland 21, (07 RWC) France 25 Ireland 3; (07) Ireland 17 France 20; (06) France 43 Ireland 31.
Leading points scorers: France: Vincent Clerc 110, Yannick Jauzion 93.
Ireland: Ronan O'Gara 945, Brian O'Driscoll 205.
Leading try scorers: France: Vincent Clerc 22, Yannick Jauzion 18, Imanol Harinordoquy 11. Ireland: Brian O'Driscoll 38, Ronan O'Gara 14, Tommy Bowe 11, David Wallace 11.
Betting: 4/9 France, 20/1 Draw, 7/4 Ireland. Handicap odds: 10/11 France (-5), 20/1 Draw (-5), 10/11 Ireland (+5).
Forecast: If Ireland are within a score entering the last 20 . . .
