Donal Lenihan: Short-term pain, but plenty of gain in the long run for Ireland

Mon, 14 Feb, 2022 - 06:00

Now we know. Ireland are a very good side but, at the moment, France are just that little bit better. The challenge for Andy Farrell and his management team is to close that gap between now and the World Cup in 19 months’ time.

Built up for months as the potential game of the championship, it’s rare for these contests to live up to their pre-match billing. Not only did this one manage to do just that, it surpassed all our expectations in a game of high intensity, tense drama, and bristling intent to the final whistle.

Right at the death, it looked as if a superb try by French full-back Melvyn Jaminet had finally put distance between the teams. That was before the TMO Ben Whitehouse identified an incredible bit of defensive work from Ireland’s reserve hooker Dan Sheehan, who refused to give up the fight and got his hand under the ball thus preventing a clear grounding.

Incredibly, with another two minutes of pulsating action left on the clock, Ireland were still in the fight, even if a converted try was required to snatch an unlikely victory. If you had said that three minutes after the break, when they trailed by 15 points, the men in white coats would have been placed on standby. Yet this Irish team were not for giving up.

A brace of tries from Josh van der Flier and Jamison Gibson-Park, seemingly out of nothing, flipped this amazing contest on its head, and all of a sudden we had a one-point game. The French looked stunned and couldn’t countenance what had just happened.

Since Shaun Edwards has come on board, this French side has discovered a newfound belief in its defensive solidity yet, by the 50th minute, Ireland scored three tries; some, like Mack Hansen’s extraordinary opener, bizarre in nature.

Questions have now been asked about the mental fortitude of this emerging French team, in two massive games, against New Zealand last November and now Ireland. Encouragingly for them, on the journey they’re undertaking towards hosting the 2023 World Cup, they found the answers when the heat of battle was at its most intense.

In a riveting second half of non-stop action in Saint-Denis and, just as they did against the All Blacks last November, this French team held its nerve when those of a more
recent vintage would have found a way to lose.

It also has to be said that, from an Irish perspective, there was absolutely no shame in defeat in this game. At half-time they were in serious trouble. Having failed to concede a single penalty until the 53rd-minute against Wales last time out, Ireland conceded eight before the break alone, most as a consequence of the pressure France were imposing at the set piece and the breakdown.

No surprise to me that their first point of attack in the opening half was the scrum. In the respective warm-ups, a half hour before kick-off, France went through a series of live scrums against an even beefier-looking opposition eight in their in-goal area. It was full-on. Fed on a diet of just how good this newly cast Irish front row was, their French counterparts were not buying it.

On the first two French feeds, they got a nudge of sufficient quality to encourage them to look for more from the next engagement. Two key penalties followed, the second on the stroke of half-time when their outstanding No 8 Gregory Alldritt controlled the ball sweetly at the base, demanded a second drive from his monstrous front five.

The response was immediate, like pressing a hydraulic force. The French juggernaut inched forward with sufficient conviction to convince Australian referee Angus Gardner to award the penalty. Once again Jaminet, who had a mixed game early on under the high ball, stroked the ball effortlessly to deliver a fourth successful kick on the bounce to extend the French lead to 12 at the break.

Forced to play on the back foot from the outset, unable to breach the gain line having come off second best in all the meaningful collisions to that point, Ireland were in trouble. This French pack weighs in, on average, at half a stone heavier than their Irish counterparts. On top of that, they bring a potent mix of power and explosiveness that Ireland found very difficult to handle.

The French also unveiled a punishing blitz defence from the outset that smothered Ireland’s attacking game and never gave them the same space to exploit that Wales did.

That said, and despite conceding a ninth penalty immediately after the break that extended the French lead even further, Ireland adjusted their game, picked up the tempo and created two tries out of nothing that rocked the French.

That the game was still in the balance at the final whistle is a credit to the never-say-die attitude of this admirable Irish team who not only had to contend with the best the French could throw at them on the field but a raucous audience of 81,000 people, the vast majority clad in the blue, white, and red of the host nation who have clearly fallen back in love with their national team.

Ireland may have finished second on the scoreboard, but there is plenty for Farrell to be both proud and encouraged by in this losing-bonus-point defeat. Coming into the game, it was astonishing to hear that, despite the fact that Joey Carbery had 28 caps to his name, he had never started a Six Nations contest to this point. Championship debuts don’t come more difficult than this.

Yet, despite very little game time over the last three months, he acquitted himself magnificently. Given the pressure the French were imposing through that superbly choreographed blitz defence, Carbery had little or no time on the ball.

With his pack on the back foot for large tracts of the game and losing the battle for the gain line, Carbery was put under intense pressure. To his credit, it never showed, and his ability to challenge the host defence with his flight of foot, mixed with an excellent kicking and passing game, augurs well for life after the great Johnny Sexton. Carbery survived an examination of monumental proportions in impressive fashion.

When hooker Ronan Kelleher had to replaced by a rookie in fellow Leinster man Dan Sheehan, you wondered how Ireland would cope. While the lineout suffered to a degree, Sheehan rose to the challenge as if to the manner born.

His work rate and carrying was top class, while his doggedness in chasing a lost cause at the end secured a losing bonus point that may yet prove vital when the final championship table is tabulated.

The likes of Sheehan, Hansen, Gibson-Park, Hugo Keenan, and Caelan Doris will have learned a huge amount from this experience having either spent most of their international careers operating behind closed doors or pitted against opponents not quite in the same class as this superbly balanced French outfit.

The manner of Ireland’s second-half fightback, rescuing a situation that could so easily have turned ugly, will stand to this continually developing group of players. I’m not sure if it’s ever happened before that Ireland had the luxury of starting with five British and Irish Lions poised to be sprung from the bench, but that in itself offers an insight into the depth that Farrell is building.

Saturday’s defeat, taken in isolation, is a setback, but the journey that Farrell and his coaching team are undertaking is a marathon, not a sprint.

The disappointment in defeat will be short term, the benefits, hopefully, will be manifest further down the line.