Bullish Bowe wants to drive on

Double try scorer Tommy Bowe has backed his team to put the smiles back on their faces in time for their next RBS 6 Nations encounter against Scotland this Saturday.

Ireland came away from Stade de France feeling disappointed and frustrated after letting slip a 17-6 half-time lead and the chance of a first victory in Paris since 2000.

Now, with just a six-day turnaround, Bowe believes some positivity can be re-injected into the Irish camp for the visit of Scotland.

“I think we’ll look at the things we did well, especially that first half, for things to reflect positively upon,” Bowe said. “Now it’s a case of getting everybody fit and out onto the pitch again with the smiles back on our faces.

“We’ve two enormous matches ahead of us and it’s up to us to pick ourselves back up and get out there.”

Bowe was not the only Ireland player to experience mixed emotions having increased his 2012 Six Nations try tally to five in three games before half-time as Ireland supporters anticipated the possibility of another hat-trick to emulate Brian O’Driscoll’s feat those 12 years ago.

A poor second half from the visitors put paid to that as the French crept back into the game and though a draw might be seen as a creditable result against the World Cup finalists in their own backyard, neither Bowe nor Jamie Heaslip were in the mood for celebration.

“I’m delighted to get on the scoresheet,” Bowe said. “It’s very difficult to score a try or two tries at Stade de France but to have come away with nothing out of it, a draw is disappointing.

“A draw, I suppose, is meant to be a good result over here, our second best result in 20 or 30 years, but we gave ourselves the opportunity to come away with a win and to not score a point in the second half was very disappointing.”

Heaslip added: “I just got interviewed by BBC and they said, ‘you must be happy with that result?’. You know for a lot of the guys that’s a pretty hard pill to swallow. We came here to win, we outscored them two tries to one and we’ve come away with a draw.”

The mood was very different to that in the Irish dressing room at half-time as the visitors contemplated their 11-point advantage.

“Yeah, we were confident, we’ve all talked about it before, coming here with our clubs.

“For some reason people say it’s impossible to win over here yet all the clubs have won over here and done very well over the last few years.

“The one thing we know all about French teams, you hold onto the ball, go through the phases, and take your opportunities and don’t give them opportunities – and you’ll win the game.

“But it’s a little bit frustrating on our behalf but that’s just the way it went.

Heaslip credited the French for their comeback just after half-time when a Morgan Parra penalty either side of an unconverted Wesley Fofana try levelled the scores.

“They showed their class, to be honest, by taking that score. It was a fairly opportunistic thing.

“They did well off the back of a lineout, it spilled out to the middle of the field, they got the bounce and the next thing Fofana is tearing down the middle.

“It was a bit of an opportunistic try but that’s Test rugby, you make a mistake and you get punished, especially with the kickers they had. We gave them outs in their half and let them kind of stay in touch with us on the scoreboard.

“Parra is such a quality kicker, but it’s frustrating, we scored two tries to one but we don’t have the four points in the bag.”