Folly to omit Foley for French fray

BRIAN O’DRISCOLL could hardly have put it more succinctly.

“Play like that in the Stade de France and you get obliterated,” said Ireland’s captain in the wake of Saturday’s desperately poor RBS Six Nations opener against Italy at Lansdowne Road.

It is indeed a scary thought that Ireland must tackle the French in their own backyard in six days time with largely the same team that enjoyed huge chunks of luck against a distinctly limited Italian side.

Coach Eddie O’Sullivan is again under fire after a performance reminiscent of the autumn internationals. He must show his hand for Paris by lunchtime tomorrow and there are at least two areas that must be considered in the hope of staving off O’Driscoll’s feared “obliteration.”

The decision to discard Anthony Foley when he was playing some of the best rugby of his career must be reassessed. Ireland finished Saturday’s game with seven Munster forwards on the field and it was incredible that Foley was the odd man out.

He must surely come back at number eight in a direct swap with Denis Leamy who could also be switched to the blindside flank in place of the anonymous Simon Easterby. Saturday’s game seemed to pass Malcolm O’Kelly by and he was lucky to stay on the pitch for 60 minutes. Donncha O’Callaghan is a readymade replacement and can be confidently expected to renew his Munster and Lions second-row partnership with Paul O’Connell, the one Irishman to enhance his reputation against the Azzurri.

O’Sullivan must also query why a dozen Munster and Leinster players could perform with absolute brilliance against Sale and Bath in crucial Heineken Cup games a fortnight ago only to revert to their all too familiar disjointed selves once they pull on the green jersey.

Brian O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan and, to a lesser extent, Gordon D’Arcy, were hardly recognisable from the players who ripped Bath apart, while the Munster dominated pack was a pale shadow of the unit that humbled the Sharks.

The game’s top players regularly insist that the Six Nations is a step up from the Heineken Cup and you can only take them at their word for that. Nevertheless, the ineptitude dished up in the name of the international game on Saturday was a long way short of what we saw in those matches in Thomond Park and the Recreation ground two weeks ago. As for atmosphere, well, there was hardly any and the 3,000 or so brave Italian fans who travelled to Dublin put the home contingent in the shade. Those who make their way to Lansdowne Road on international match day need something big to happen on the field to get behind their side and that certainly has not been happening in recent times. Still, the coach and captain clutched at straws.

“I’m not downbeat because there will always be games like that and the result had to be ground out and I’ll take the positives out of this,” insisted O’Driscoll.

O’Sullivan offered that: “France will throw the ball around and that will suit us as well.”

Full marks to the beleaguered pair if they can see light at the end of the tunnel although O’Sullivan agreed they “must get over the gain line a lot more.” While Tommy Bowe (another whose position could be in jeopardy with Denis Hickie or Andrew Trimble as viable alternatives) and Jerry Flannery insist that they scored fair tries, few are convinced. True, referee David Pearson was perfectly positioned to pass judgement on both occasions and the television pictures don’t tell the whole story. However, you could hardly argue with Italy coach Pierre Berbizier when he ranted about Pearson’s failure to ask for video confirmation before blowing to signal Bowe’s score. And the anxious manner in which Ronan O’Gara looked at the ref to see if he was awarding Flannery’s try also told its own story.

Furthermore, the luckless Italians had out-half Ramiro Pez yellow carded for a relatively harmless late tackle whereas O’Driscoll escaped a stamping incident in full view of the referee.

“I saw him drive a guy (Fabio Ongaro) back with his boot, he didn’t jump up and down on him and there’s a difference,” said O’Sullivan.

Berbizier’s response? “I want to know if stamping is now okay in the Six Nations, especially by the Irish captain?”

The former French scrum-half genius also insisted that Italy are now “competitive and can improve. It could have been a very different game if the referee had asked for the video referee for the second try.

Italy may well ruffle a few feathers before the campaign is over and seem to have found an out-half general in Pez, who is blessed with a cultured and powerful left boot. Yellow carded or not, he played beautifully and completely out foxed O’Gara and D’Arcy in creating the game’s best and probably only legitimate try for Gonzalo Canale.

A salutary thought is that Pez isn’t assured of a place even on the bench for Perpignan, Munster’s Heineken Cup opponents on April 1.