Ireland ready to bring France down to size

France will be more disciplined than last week but may be about to meet their match in an Ireland side that can not only roll with the punches but throw a few haymakers themselves

FOCUS: Johnny Sexton during Ireland's captain's run. Pic: INPHO/Billy Stickland

The way Ireland have been churning through players recently it is no wonder Andy Farrell has adjusted his estimation of the depths his squad strength needs to plumb to have a hope of competing at the highest levels of Test rugby.

SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP

Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.

SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP

Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.

It is why the Ireland head coach has strived so hard to stretch and stress his resources over the last 12 months with this September’s World Cup on the horizon, adding two tour games against the Maori All Blacks in New Zealand last summer, an Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa last autumn and an A international against an All Blacks XV in November.

For a nation whose player pool is relatively thin compared to some of the big beasts in the world game, including France, Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations visitors to Dublin, Ireland have been punching above their weight for some time now and necessarily so in the context of past disappointments at critical moments when the numbers just did not add up.

Farrell was forced to start this championship campaign in Wales last Saturday already having resigned himself to the absences of Tadhg Furlong, Robbie Henshaw and Rónan Kelleher before the losses in the hours before kick-off of Jamison Gibson-Park and Cian Healy.

All are integral and established members of his preferred matchday 23 and considering Farrell’s predecessor Joe Schmidt sustained casualties of a similar ilk at the 2015 World Cup and suffered a quarter-final defeat to Argentina as a direct consequence, Ireland’s dominant 34-10 victory over Wales back at the same stadium last weekend was a clear sign of the progression that has been made in terms of squad readiness and adaptability.

Ireland are finding ways to overcome such disruptions, with the next men in more than holding up their ends of the bargain and doing their cause for further inclusion no harm in the process.

Of that missing quintet, only Kelleher has passed fit in time to be on duty on Saturday when the defending champions come to a sold-out Aviva Stadium intent on extending their 14-Test winning streak and knocking Ireland off their perch as the number one team in the World Rugby rankings.

Kelleher’s return from a hamstring issue to make the replacements bench is timely given that fellow hooker Dan Sheehan was ruled out this week with a similar injury, making the hammy a problem area in more ways than one given it has also put paid to the availability of Healy and Gibson-Park.

Rob Herring starts in the middle of the front row, the Ulsterman a reassuring presence given the likely scrum battle that awaits as he, Andrew Porter, on his 50th cap, and Furlong’s stand-in Finlay Bealham prepare to face a heavyweight French combination of Cyril Baille, Julian Marchand and Uini Atonio.

That Gibson-Park’s fellow scrum-half Conor Murray was on Friday described as “good to go” by assistant coach John Fogarty having returned to camp following the road accident that left his father Gerry in hospital is another mark of the individual and collective resilience coursing through Farrell’s squad.

Yet the Ireland boss said on Thursday he had upgraded his estimation made on tour last summer that he felt he needed 40 players of the necessary standard to go toe to toe with the very best in the business.

“I’ve changed my mind. It’s probably 45,” Farrell said. “Yeah, honestly, it is, really. The way that the game is nowadays, the way that the athletes are, there’s always going to be moving parts, the competition gets you to those performances that you’re craving as well. So the more the merrier.” 

Saturday's contest will undoubtedly offer a further examination of that strength in numbers. France will be expected to have shaken off the rust, the ill-discipline and perhaps a little complacency that saw them struggle to overcome Italy in Rome last Sunday with a win in Dublin the next major stepping stone for Fabien Galthie’s team to negotiate on the road to a home World Cup in seven months.

It should make for a blockbuster spectacle with Ireland bidding to beat Les Bleus for the first time in Farrell’s three-and-a-quarter-year tenure. Last year’s visit to Stade de France was as significant for this Ireland team as Saturday’s Aviva Stadium clash is for the French. The Irish learned a lot about themselves that day, under the cosh from the first whistle and 10-0 down after six minutes as the home crowd maintained the wall of sound and sea of blue that had enveloped the senses long before kick-off in St Denis.

Yet without captain Johnny Sexton, sidelined by injury, they found a way to make a game of it, outscoring the French by three tries to two and clawing the score back to 22-21 before ultimately losing out 30-24.

Ireland have lost only once since that night 12 months ago, in the first Test against the All Blacks at their Eden Park fortress last July and have reached the point now where this is a contest of two evenly-matched sides, in terms of ability and cohesion if not size.

France won the power game a year ago on home soil but their bigger bodies are no longer the game changer they were against an Irish side that has learned how to cope with and defeat Test rugby behemoths, not least the world-champions South Africa last November.

Farrell’s men have what it takes to get the Aviva Stadium rocking on Saturday afternoon, just as Stade de France got behind their men last February. They also have the clarity, fitness and organisation to unsettle a bigger set of players and add to the discomfort they experienced six days ago at the Stadio Olimpico. France will be better and more disciplined but they may finally be about to meet their match in an Ireland side that can not only roll with the punches but throw a few haymakers themselves.

IRELAND: H Keenan (Leinster); M Hansen (Connacht), G Ringrose (Leinster), S McCloskey (Ulster), J Lowe (Leinster); J Sexton (Leinster) – captain, C Murray (Munster); A Porter (Leinster), R Herring (Ulster), F Bealham (Connacht); T Beirne (Munster), J Ryan (Leinster); P O’Mahony (Munster), J van der Flier (Leinster), C Doris (Leinster).

Replacements: R Kelleher (Leinster), D Kilcoyne (Munster), T O’Toole (Ulster), I Henderson (Ulster), J Conan (Leinster), C Casey (Munster), R Byrne (Leinster), B Aki (Connacht).

FRANCE: T Ramos (Toulouse); D Penaud (Clermont), G Fickou (Racing 92), Y Moefana (Bordeaux-Begles), E Dumortier (Lyon); R Ntamack (Toulouse), A Dupont – captain (Toulouse); C Baille (Toulouse), J Marchand (Toulouse), U Atonio (La Rochelle); T Flament (Toulouse), P Willemse (Montpellier); A Jelonch (Toulouse), C Ollivon (Toulon), G Alldritt (La Rochelle).

Replacements: G Barlot (Castres), R Wardi (La Rochelle), S Falatea (Bordeaux-Begles), R Taofifenua (Lyon), F Cros (Toulouse), S Macalou (Stade Francais), B Couilloud (Lyon), M Jalibert (Bordeaux-Begles). 

Referee: Wayne Barnes (England).