Why the new green wave don’t feel blue

IN THE final game of the 2002 Six Nations championship, Ireland faced France. It was Eddie O’Sullivan’s first year as head of Ireland’s coaching team and spirits were high.

Scotland, Wales and Italy had been dispatched with ease, but England had ruthlessly punished the new and still mistrusted defensive system, much to the frustration of Ireland’s new assistant coach, Mike Ford. But we had an opportunity for redemption and travelled to Paris hoping to thwart the French Grand Slam efforts.

Plus, we still had a mathematical chance of winning the Championship.

Two years earlier Brian O’Driscoll had burst onto the international rugby scene with an explosive hat-trick of tries. We were confident that the misery of the previous decades was a thing of the past and victories in Paris would no longer be in the realms of fantasy. We had broken the miserable run of defeats and believed we could do it again.

I had mixed feelings about the match. Rob Henderson, who was in the form of his life, returned from injury. And as a result, Shane Horgan slipped back out to the wing and I, feeling rather aggrieved, was pushed onto the bench. Thirty minutes into the first half, I realised I was the lucky one. Ireland were destroyed. The bands were playing and the cockerel was launched onto the pitch. The floodgates opened and the Irish backs could do nothing to halt the flow. Nicolas Brusque, Serge Betsen and Aurelien Rougerie grabbed five tries between them. The nightmares of the previous three decades were back to haunt every Irish rugby supporter.

That night, there was the usual black tie formal dinner. I was intrigued by the mood of the French squad. They displayed none of the exuberant celebration that would have been expected from a Grand Slam-winning side. The Irish team would have been dancing on the tables had we been able to defy mathematics and snatch a Championship win. Heaven knows what carnage would have ensued had we won a Grand Slam. But the French were almost laissez faire about their achievement. Victories were expected. Their attitude bordered on arrogance. But if you’re only losing at home to Ireland four times since the war, such an attitude was understandable.

It was often the same in those sobering Paris defeats. The French pack would pummel our valiant but battered Irish forwards and the flair out wide would inflict damage on the scoreboard. The names of the try scorers are etched in the memory: Blanco, Sella, Mesnel, Lafonde, Bernat-Salles; each of them inflicted pain on Irish backline defence.

The current French side have picked a backline for today that has the potential to bludgeon the Irish up the middle or scorch them on outside. O’Driscoll and Darcy face the two juggernauts, Jauzion and Bastareaud, while the pace of Clerc, Poitrenaud and Salisson will always pose a threat out wide.

Keith Earls has been drafted onto the wing for his first Six Nations start. In the past, being selected for a French away match was a fast-track to a one-way revolving door. It catapulted players back into the realms of rugby obscurity – especially wingers.

Every week of a Six Nations campaign, Anthony Foley used to entertain us on the team bus by regularly announcing his latest “one-cap wonder” Irish team. Anybody who had recently made their debut was an automatic addition to the side. It was always a relief when you achieved the elusive second start. However there were always a few regulars on his team and many of them began and ended their international careers in Paris.

However, Earls is of a different generation. He didn’t live through the fruitless years. First he saw Munster teams win against elite club sides like Toulouse and Stade Francais. In 2000, when he was 12 years old, he saw his hero, Brian O’Driscoll, demolish the French backline and carry Ireland to that elusive victory on French soil. Along with Rob Kearney, Tommy Bowe and Cian Healy, he is part of a new generation. For them the agony suffered at the hands of the Les Bleus isn’t relevant.

They have a swagger and confidence similar to that of the French Grand Slam side of 2002. They are Celtic Tiger kids who are not burdened by any inferiority complexes or feelings of inadequacy.

It is about time Ireland scored another victory in Paris and yes, it would be nice to watch a green tide flooding through the blue defence.