Fans hoping French will put plenty over the bar at Croker

IRISH fans had been hoping that French striker Andre-Pierre Gignac would be employing his Gaelic football skills by putting plenty over the bar at Croke Park tomorrow.

The Toulouse striker was expected to line out for Les Blues in the World Cup qualifier – although doubts were raised last night after he limped off after training. But earlier the striker admitted to not only a fondness for Ireland but also for Gaelic football.

It turns out Gignac spent some time here as a youngster and fell in love with the native game. “When I was younger, I went to Ireland to a summer camp at Fermoy, near Cork. There, I discovered Gaelic football,” he said.

Gignac said he was looking forward to playing in the home of the GAA.

“Croke Park is a wonderful stadium. It is fantastic to play there for World Cup qualification. Indeed, that match may be the most important of my career.

“You don’t know what the future will be. World Cup qualification is an opportunity you could have just once in your whole career,” he said.

It is clear that teammate Eric Abidal hasn’t seen much of Gaelic football on his travels, however.

Predicting a tough and somewhat physical approach, his description of the Irish tactics was a little on the soft side.

“They try to tickle your ankles, but that’s part of football. It will require a lot of self-control from our part. We must make sure we hold our nerve in order not to hamper the team,” he said.

Tickling of the ankles is not a phrase very often used in the ranks of Ireland’s ordinary Gaelic footballer.

And it’s probably fair to say that anybody who witnessed Tadhg Kennelly’s challenge on Nicholas Murphy in the opening seconds of this year’s All-Ireland final would hardly place it in the “ankle-tickling” realm.