Eddie’s ship has not been a steady one

In everyone’s eyes but their own they went to Paris as no-hopers, lambs to the slaughter.

Underdogs to France's red hot favourites, but they weren't going for containment or to avoid humiliation; they were going for the win.

They were well beaten in the end by 17 points, but the Irish women's rugby squad and everyone involved deserve only praise for the way they went about their business last weekend.

Their male counterparts?

I take my hat off to the players. They did their best, played to the finish, never gave up the fight. And that's where I draw the line.

Does anyone remember November, 2001? Having presided over a terrible World Cup in 1999, a drubbing by England in 2000, Warren Gatland finally got a handle on the job of managing Ireland. The turnaround began in Paris, of all places, after Gatland had finally turned to the successful Munster team for the bulk of his side.

Ireland won with the help of the already-legendary O'Driscoll hat-trick of tries and maintained that progress through the 2001 season, beating France again and England. Only an unworthy loss to the Murrayfield bogey-men denied Ireland the Triple Crown and Grand Slam and there was no denying Irish rugby was finally on the up, 11 wins in their last 15 games.

What happened? That November, Gatland was shafted by the IRFU. Contract not renewed was the official language. Appointed in Gatland's place, Eddie O'Sullivan.

"We have a pretty good squad of players and a good structure in place," was O'Sullivan's immediate reaction. "Things are going well at the moment and my job is to make them go even better. That's the challenge and I'm really looking forward to it."

Two and half years on, about the time his contract was due to run out, has he met that challenge? In 2001, with Gatland at the helm and on the back of a strengthening Heineken Cup challenge, Ireland were pulling away from team-building Italy, shambolic Wales and a fading Scotland. They were looking the French pretty much dead in the eye; were looking to even the field against England.

2004? We're eating English dust, look to have given up the ghost against France; all that's left is to try and hold off the challenge of a resurgent Wales. A few frightening scorelines for ye. Spring 2002, 6-Nations: England 45 Ireland 11; France 44 Ireland 5. 6-Nations 2003: Ireland 6 England 42. World Cup 2003: France 43 Ireland 21; 27-0 at half-time, 37-0 before Ireland began scoring. 6-Nations 2004: France 35 Ireland 17.

Take out all the jetsam and flotsam of the past couple of years, Georgia, Russia, Romania and the likes. What has O'Sullivan achieved? The win over Australia in Lansdowne Road late last year was achieved on the back of a near-perfect performance by Ronan O'Gara (rewarded by being dropped for the next significant international). Other than that?

The real benchmark for Ireland is England, with France next in line. Far from 'making things go even better', O'Sullivan's Ireland are falling further and further behind. A major reason is O'Sullivan's choice of players, in his first fifteen, in his squad. When Geordan Murphy broke his leg before last year's World Cup, his loss was seen, rightly, as critical his status up there with Brian O'Driscoll.

This was the same Geordan Murphy ignored time after time by O'Sullivan, for Girvan Dempsey. Oh, Dempsey has all the basics, we were always told.

Here's one of my basics: to play rugby for Ireland, you need to have a lot more than the basics. Due respect to a lovely fella, Girvan doesn't.

Before this French game, Eddie told us he was picking purely on recent form. Gary Longwell? Struggling to make a struggling team (Ulster), he was in the original squad, but Johnny O'Connor, player-of-the-month in England, wasn't, nor was Gavin Duffy, or Trevor Brennan.

A Leinster pack pushed off the park in their make-or-break game against Biarritz? Four started in Paris and were pushed backwards again in the set scrum.

There are other decisions made by O'Sullivan over the years with which I would vehemently disagree (O'Gara for example, streets ahead of Humphreys in all-round play), but it's the glaring errors that are most worrying. In my opinion, he has taken us backwards. His reward? A four-year extension to his contract.

In a move that has ghostly echoes of November 2001, Declan Kidney, the most outstanding and successful home-grown Irish coaching talent of recent years, will not have his contract renewed in the current international set-up. Wrong man shafted then; wrong man shafted now.

Their abuse of the clubs apart, the IRFU suits have much to answer for.