The longest game

THEY SAY there languishes somewhere in the vaults a low-rent Hollywood medieval war epic which would otherwise be forgotten but for a memorable scene at the beginning in which we meet a peasant leaving his village to do battle.

"Farewell, my beloved," he calls to his tearful wife, "for I am off to fight in the Hundred Years War."

Although the protracted nature of the build-up might suggest otherwise, Ireland versus France shouldn't last quite as long as that classic tie between France and England, an end-to-end ding-dong battle which went to extra-time and then some.

But early this week, Brian Kerr did make a sort of centenary French connection when he noted that, between them, Zidane, Makelele and Thuram were about 100 years old. He also said he was surprised Les Bleus hadn't gone the whole hog and recalled golden oldies like Platini and Rocheteau.

It was all good knockabout stuff but, although delivered with a mischievous grin, it was also clear Kerr didn't mind if he punctured the French balloon.

And there was no humorous intent when, in an unsolicited comment, he had a pop at Raymond Domenech, whom he accused of "slagging off" the Irish style of play.

Kerr's remark came out of left-field, since no journalist present could think of any recent incident in which his French counterpart had disparaged the Irish team. True, Domenech had complained about the Irish coup in negotiating a Group 4 calendar in which both France and Switzerland would be obliged to travel to Dublin at the sharp end of the campaign.

But French journalists clarified that the manager had reserved his biggest criticisms for the French FA and added they couldn't think of a time when Domenech knocked Irish football.

"He never really says much about the opposition at all," said one.

In the end, some extensive research - oh, alright then, Google - turned up a quote by Domenech about Ireland's 2-2 draw with Israel at Lansdowne, in which the French boss seemed underwhelmed by the fact that the Irish had finished the game with "two big men" - Clinton Morrison and Gary Doherty - up front.

As criticisms go, you might say it overcooked an old football stereotype but it was hardly a shot that could be heard around Europe for 100 seconds, let alone 100 years.

So unless Kerr knows something we don't - about the existence, say, of a covert tape-recording in which Domenech is heard to denounce the Irish 11 as "un crap team" and the Kerr as "un crap manager" and "un crap human being" - then we have to assume he was intent on stoking the fires a little in advance of Wednesday.

It's not something Kerr has done before - indeed, he has been criticised for being too lavish in his praise of opposing teams - but if he chooses this week to start playing a few war games, then it might be no bad thing.

And the word that Roy Keane could be put up before the press for the eve-of-match conference on Tuesday - the same day that Zinedine Zidane will be doing likewise for France - also sounds like a useful bit of psych ops on the part of the Irish camp.

Here in France, where your correspondent has spent the last few days behind enemy lines, the mood is more post-war than pre-war.

The return of the Three Musketeers has lifted the gloom of France's fairly dismal campaign to date. And the mood in the camp seems to be one of boundless optimism. Even the embattled Domenech is seen to smile. TV cameras at Clairefontaine captured joyful team-bonding scenes of a grinning Zidane and all the rest leaping on each other like excited schoolboys.

Only Lilian Thuram's admission that he was a reluctant returnee - "summoned" was the word he used to describe Domenech's call-up - has cast a little cloud, but even he was at pains during the week to say that regardless of his hand being "forced", he was glad to be back.

But then, unlike the Irish, the French have more than one game to think about. Tonight they resume World Cup action in Lens against the Faroe Islands, hardly the most challenging of assignments. Of course, Domenech and the players talk only of treating the opposition with respect, but the French public will hardly be content with anything other than a comprehensive walloping and an imperious display by Zidane.

But how many years would he have to roll back to do that?

In all the euphoria, what no one here is talking about is the fact that when he originally left the scene, it was after poor back-to-back World Cup and European championships. That double act could still prove more germane than the celebrated version which brought Zidane and France the two titles more than five years ago.

Whatever happens tonight, the battle of Lansdowne Road, you suspect, will tell the real tale. It won't last 100 years, but it might just feel like that.