Calm before the Landsdowne storming

RUGBY tradition has it that the French, like oysters, are best had early in the season. The later and milder it gets, the more expressive their rugby. If the performance of their supporters on the streets yesterday was anything to go by, Ireland need only turn up today to win.

Grafton Street was full of French visitors throughout the afternoon, but you'd hardly have known it. Hundreds of them wandered around aimlessly, blending in with the winter city like extras in a film noir. Gauloise smoke settled over St Stephen's Green like a light fog, but only if you listened hard and heard the murmured French would you know that the city had been invaded.

In the midst of this dourness, there were one or two moments of Gallic flair. A group from the Basque club A.S. Salies strolled down Grafton Street, wearing their club jackets and looking for all the world like rugby fans.

Their sponsored clothes bore both the club symbol of a wild pig and their local nightclub's logo of an excited cat, between them suggesting the eternal French themes of food and sex, neither of which had featured on their trip so far.

"Pubs and streets," answered Jean Pierre Sentenac, asked how they had passed their three days in Dublin. "Tonight, maybe girls," he added, perhaps remembering the national image.

In Temple Bar, Stephen Tarascon returned the emphasis to rugby and predicted a 35-18 French win. Stephen comes from somewhere in the middle of the French rugby heartland between Bayonne and Lourdes and, if he's right, Lourdes is where Ireland's best chance lies today.

But an example of what the French can do when they get warmed up was provided in Brogan's pub in Dame Street. Mireille Veisin, the spokeswoman and only female among 10 noisy men, announced they were mostly from Bobigny in Paris and had been travelling to the away games for years.

The Irish were the friendliest and the Welsh drank the most, she said. "We don't like the English" she added, a comment seconded by spitting noises from her male friends.

Enthusiastic singers all, they were invited to indulge, a mistake on a par with kicking a drop-out straight to a French winger. They launched into a loud rendition of an obviously rude song which threatened to get us all thrown out of the bar. But what was worse, the lead singer - not the solitary woman - insisted on performing it while sitting on my knee.

And they call the Irish friendly.