Be careful what you wish for in lamenting French demise

Christy Ring doesn’t often spring to mind on Six Nations weekends, but the great one’s remark about the GAA being half-dressed without a strong Tipperary could be easily tweaked for France, such is its importance to rugby as another championship dawns and Ireland make the trip to Paris unburdened by the terror of old.

The notion that Irish rugby fans could look past the imminent business in the French capital and crane their necks towards a possible Grand Slam decider at Twickenham would have been ludicrous to generations who were weighed down by feelings of dread rather than expectation on their journeys to Paris in springtime.

Whether player or supporter, most had their tale of a beating on the pitch salved every so slightly by alcohol. This writer’s own offering stems from a first Stade de France assignment in 2006, when a ‘guess the time of the first score’ competition run by the French federation in the press box earned us a bottle of champers.