Ambition aplenty but Irish pay for Paris errors

IT’S like this: shoot yourself in the foot enough times, and you’ll eventually bleed to death.

So it proved, not for one, not even two, but three Irish teams over the weekend in Strasbourg, Limoges and Paris. Three cities, three defeats and a baggage full of regrets to haul back through customs.

What happened in the Stade de France on Saturday might have been more dramatic but, in some respects, the game merely mirrored what transpired the previous day when the two nations lined out for the Under-21 and 'A' fixtures.