This was not just a game of two halves, it was a story of two games. In the first you were counting yourself lucky to be witnessing an utterly compelling Test match where, for a change, the atmosphere in the crowd complemented the action on the field. In the second – specifically the last 33 minutes – France nipped into the pits and came out with new tyres and a tank full of turbo juice. And that was that.
The modern version of France has the capacity to play like the best team in the world. It does not happen like dialling up the numbers to order the same dish. Sometimes they do not just produce the wrong food but do not even show at all.
This time, however, they came with both hands full of goodies: initially with a defensive game when they racked up what surely is a world record 81 tackles to Ireland’s 14 in the opening 17 minutes. They double-teamed the home side at the tackle and deprived them of momentum and Ireland struggled to cope. What followed, down the track a bit, was the combination of power and pace coming up with a bonus point sorted before 60 minutes was up.
From the outset, they also hit the sucker punch cleverly, with a clinical display of efficiency the moment they were down the far end, for the game’s opening try, the first of two from Louis Bielle-Biarrey. Joe McCarthy had barely reached the sin-bin when Ireland were paying the price. Ominous stuff.
Even when Antoine Dupont went off with a knee injury on the half-hour mark they did not lose the plot. That loss left them with no cover behind the scrum the score was 5-0 to them. They just got better and better as it went on and visibly quickened once the load on the bench was lightened with five brutes coming on together, with more than half an hour to play.
By then Bielle-Biarrey was adding more notches to a belt that needs lengthening. He is a phenomenon.
Two tries of different substance: the first a run-in to give France the lead when the place was still rocking; the second a crazily good finish to a grubber and chase that involved calming the bouncing ball as if he was straightening out a duvet.
They needed that for Ireland’s opening to the second half was not too shabby. Desperately requiring some pace in their breakdown ball, they found some inside three minutes of the second period when Dan Sheehan scored off a maul. The approach work to setting up that platform suggested Ireland had fixed a problem. Not so.
That lead of 13-8 became a romantic memory when France struck twice in four minutes soon after. With those tries from Paul Boudehent and Bielle-Biarrey the context of the day had changed utterly.
Ireland suffered their second yellow card when Calvin Nash – a late replacement before kick-off for James Lowe – was sent to the bin for head contact and again France saw blood in the water and went in for the kill with that double strike.
From that point, at 22-13 down, Ireland were in a different contest: trying to move close enough to win a bonus point but knowing that every failed attempt on that score ran the risk of being done from distance.
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The cruellest blow was to be pounding away on the France line, with five minutes left, only for Thomas Ramos and Damian Penaud to combine for a 70-metre try.
To Ireland’s credit they kept plugging away, managing to change the complexion of the scoreline if not its meaning.
The review for France will start and finish with what key they have to turn to open the same door against Scotland next Saturday. There has to be something from this performance they can pop into the rinse-and-repeat machine for that one, though the chances of having their star scrum-half Dupont on board must be slim.
For Ireland the grand slam is gone and all they can hope for is five points in Rome and at least one other series of unlikely events to favour them. Moreover, they will have to figure out a way to inject pace into their phase play when faced with something like the quality of this France defence.
They were not clueless in their efforts to break it down but it needed something they just did not have ready to hand. It will be a long week.
