Ireland v France, 10th March 2018 15:00

First topic message reminder :

Ireland v France

Lansdowne Road
15:00 10th March 2019
Referee: Ben O’Keeffe (New Zealand)
Assistant 1: Angus Gardner (Australia)
Assistant 2: Karl Dickson (England)
TMO: Ben Skeen (New Zealand)

France Side, unchanged:
15. Thomas Ramos
14. Damien Penaud
13. Mathieu Bastareaud
12. Gael Fickou
11. Yoann Huget
10. Romain Ntamack
9. Antoine Dupont

1. Jefferson Poirot
2. Guilhem Guirado (captain)
3. Demba Bamba
4. Felix Lambey
5. Sebastien Vahaamahina
6. Wenceslas Lauret
7. Arthur Iturria
8. Louis Picamoles

Replacements:

16. Camille Chat
17. Etienne Falgoux
18. Dorian Aldegheri
19. Paul Willemse
20. Gregory Alldritt
21. Baptiste Serin
22. Anthony Belleau
23. Maxime Medard

Ireland side announced on Thursday at lunch time.

Bamba is back on

whocares wrote:The only thing that Healy achieved here is injuring a French player... typical. Going to be a very long game for France who could be losing by a huge margin today.

They have not fired a shot yet, but are only one score down. If they can ride out this Irish pressure who knows.

Another score though and floodgates could open

Should have been a penalty against Healy.

Ireland still not really firing on all cylinders here. They look like they've been taking lessons from Scotland  on how to not score after lots of possession!

France have no possession and are dominated in all aspects of the game. Hardly defending as well and would hate to be a French half back today.
It’s only the 25th minutes and they are about to go on headless chicken mode soon....

This whole game so far is an exercise in 'exploit the fact France have refused to train on exit strategies since 2010'. Shocking stuff.

Bad decision from Murray to take the ball - the maul was still going forward

Murray is not playing well.

Luckily for France, Ireland lack a bit of flair in attack. Their forwards work rate is very impressive

Good turnover by Bast.

On an earlier point, Ireland and Wales look pretty average in this tournament but still good teams. Not a bad position for either to be in going into the world cup.

Sexton almost smiled there!

Well it was coming

Long way back for France now

Collapse2005 wrote:Murray is not playing well.

Neither is POM, he looks a bit soft around the ruck.

Sexton's loop around worked for once .

About time.

Jees france are all over the place

mikey_dragon wrote:Good turnover by Bast.

On an earlier point, Ireland and Wales look pretty average in this tournament but still good teams. Not a bad position for either to be in going into the world cup.

Indeed, no one wants to be showing their best form at this stage in this very long season.

I may even take some hope from the fact that Scotland certainly are not

What a take from Ringrose, it deserves a try

Another knock on

Well it's not exactly been subtle but Ireland deserving of their 3rd try 

The stats in the first half are going to be insane.

France have had so little possession and not been allowed to contest the tackle/breakdown.

Wow France are so passive in defense ... what a shamble of a rugby team...

It would appear that France have not yet turn the corner!

France are on holidays I think

Possession stats will be very green at HT.

I'm puzzled by the decision making on the Best try. Earlier in the tournament we saw a couple of tries chalked off because the player was on his knees and then reached out.

Best's knees hit the ground, but he pushed off and made the last 2m to score. Was it because he wasn't held in a tackle? Was the maul over? Or have they just canned that interpretation?

The try looked fair enough, but that drop to his knees just made me think.

robbo277 wrote:I'm puzzled by the decision making on the Best try. Earlier in the tournament we saw a couple of tries chalked off because the player was on his knees and then reached out.

Best's knees hit the ground, but he pushed off and made the last 2m to score. Was it because he wasn't held in a tackle? Was the maul over? Or have they just canned that interpretation?

The try looked fair enough, but that drop to his knees just made me think.

I thought that when I first saw it

Good point - the general ruling of being 'out of the game' when on the knees has completely gone. Passing/popping the ball a good 5m or so when a tackler is isolated used to be an immediate penalty - now it happens a few times each week. Watching mid 00s rugby and the way the ball release HAD to be immediate made for a much quicker, and much clearer, game of rugby. Falling on the 'wrong side', for instance, is something you very rarely see punished with a turnover these days.

We're now in a semi-rugby league scenario of players squirming on the floor, holding on to the ball, placing it back etc. Same goes for reaching out to score - as you've pointed out. I can see arguments for both interpretations but the most important thing is there's probably no way 'back' to what it was.

Another thing watching this game - binding on to the ball carrier from behind. As in, your teammates (often 2) bind on and crash you into contact. Usually making it a 3 on 2. Hate it. For all the 'danger' in rugby, that's the kind of thing that, to me, makes me uncomfortable - wouldn't want to play that kind of rugby. Just looks inherently dangerous, as well as aesthetically a bit boring, to me.

Henderson is having an excellent game

Missing 1 X international French pack of forwards, if found please return them to Dublin as they are urgently required. The eight blokes picked from the crowd pre game have plenty of heart but no discipline and a massive error count.

The young French backs look good when given some ball. Give them a platform and some more experience at this level and we might see a return of meaningful French teams.

robbo277 wrote:I'm puzzled by the decision making on the Best try. Earlier in the tournament we saw a couple of tries chalked off because the player was on his knees and then reached out.

Best's knees hit the ground, but he pushed off and made the last 2m to score. Was it because he wasn't held in a tackle? Was the maul over? Or have they just canned that interpretation?

The try looked fair enough, but that drop to his knees just made me think.

Good point. Technically you are spot on, Best should have had to release the ball before regathering once on his feet. Can't recall many refs disallowing tries like that.

Poor O'Mahony, best blindside in the world they said.

Great try Earlsssssss

Easy money. Ireland looking good going into next week, or maybe France are just completely gash away from home.

Great performance from Sexton. What a guy!

In all my years Ive never seen France play so bad v Ireland. They are shocking.

Ireland haven't been at their best, but you don't have to be to beat this France side - quite comfortably - at home. With a bit more accuracy in the first half, or possibly a bit more luck, Ireland would have had the bonus point by half time.

Ireland are finishing this game very strongly. 26-0 after 62. Wouldn't bet against 40-0 from here. It's one way traffic.

mikey_dragon wrote:Easy money. Ireland looking good going into next week, or maybe France are just completely gash away from home.

Ireland don't look out of third gear. They are cruising through this one. French defence is non-existent, the positioning in the backfield is worse than what you see in social rugby.

If Ireland decide to turn it on this could be north of 50pts.

Poor decision in the yellow card. Irish front row popped up before the scrum wheeled. If anything looked like a penalty the other way. Ref looked to have made his mind up before that scrum.

Not sure I agree with the refs verdict on the scrum. That he is unable to explain to France what they were doing wrong did not help.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Poor decision in the yellow card. Irish front row popped up before the scrum wheeled. If anything looked like a penalty the other way. Ref looked to have made his mind up before that scrum.

Can you blame him? Constant penalties from France.

Very poor. Watching it back and it's quite clearly French 7 that basically 'enters' the scrum from the side/as a third prop...but the scrum was already wheeling/had popped up the Irish side.

Where's the incentive to drive straight - as I think it was a retrospective penalty based on the fact the ball popped out of the back. No advantage was given until then. May as well just drop it straight away, why take the risk/allow the other team two chances to score: once through the drive, and then again from the ref?

This is poor from Ireland, need to rack up a score now.

Ireland subbing all their key players before the hour is making the score look way too flattering for France.

Ireland went off the boil there, but the game was well won by then, so not that surprising.

If I was French, I would not take to much comfort from the two late tries, they had an awful game.

Ireland's downturn in this game didn't really coincide with the subs coming on. They looked good from minutes 60 to 70 without getting over the line. I think not scoring when the prop got binned probably took some wind out of their sails.

Collapse2005 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:Poor decision in the yellow card. Irish front row popped up before the scrum wheeled. If anything looked like a penalty the other way. Ref looked to have made his mind up before that scrum.

Can you blame him? Constant penalties from France.

If he'd pinged them for the seven at the breakdown after the ball came out and sin binned him then I'd have agreed it was fully justified.

Sleep walking tempo/mood by Ireland again in comparison to the high standard of intensity set by England and Wales, and yet.... there's that bonus point victory from a team almost unwilling to hit the consistent fury and pace required to compete at this year.... but there's France, almost lulled to sleep by the sheer dogged persistence of the Irish to keep going for the line and keep banging the one route efforts to get over the line.
Curious mood Ireland is in - I'm certain they haven't forgotten the gears required at the very top but as yet they don't seem interested in getting there. It was a good dominant display against a side that came with real intentions of upsetting another 'expected' result, yet I believe Ireland are a good 20% off the level they need to be at this year. Perhaps some very wise coaching of form is going on in the background. It looked dominant but this side have more aggression and teeth than this display today.

Glad for the win, glad for the bonus point (though I doubt it will have much impact except potentially get us to 2nd?). Hated the end game sub-induced disintegration of discipline and structure that allowed France in for two.

Ireland still have trouble creating scores from all their possession and territory. I would love to know just how long they were encamped in or around the French 22 before Sexton's try. Felt like 20 minutes at the time.

The scoreline flattered France but was a reflection of Ireland's struggle to turn possession into points. They need to be more clinical next week against a Welsh team that is so very good at playing without much ball.

Or is Schmidt giving Gats absolutely nothing?

If this is the Ireland that turns up next week, I'd be tentatively confident that Wales can manage the choke hold Ireland will try to put Wales under, and rack up enough points to have another 2015/2017 esque performance where defence decides the game.

Sadly, I think this is the game Ireland have targeted. I can see Ireland pulling out a more ambitious/effective style of rugby through the backs, and scoring 3 tries. Wales have to be able to respond.

France are woeful. Big, big structural changes needed.