French flair proves best

Jean Pierre Rives, the French Barbarians captain, looked unflappable. Flowing blond hair and no blood streaming down his face - better than usual actually.

His team arrived at Lansdowne Road full of flair and sleight of hand and duly delivered the greatly expected running game. No distance was too far. No tactic too extravagant.

Missing Jonathan Davies, who pulled out of the President's XV because his daughter was ill, Lansdowne ran in their full gamut of substitutes, seven or eight at the last count, some numbered, others not. It was, of course, tries or bust and in the final tally it was five-four to the French. Not much kicking interrupted the flow and when Xavier Blond delivered to Marc Lievremont in the ninth minute for the French Barbarians' first score, it started off a chain reaction of tries. Franck Corrihons and Christophe Dominici both went over to give the Barbarians a 19-0 lead after 15 minutes. A relatively arid 25-minute period after that produced little before Lansdowne finally got themselves on the scoreboard. Cormac Egan, festooned with Frenchmen, emerged from the bottom of a maul, ball in hand, to leave Lansdowne just two tries adrift at the break.

In the opening period of the second half French centre, Dominici, took up the running after six exquisite passes to put the French 26-5 up before man-of-the-match Corrihons added his second, breaking from inside his own 22 to show superb acceleration and change of pace for a 31-5 scoreline after 48 minutes.

Lansdowne finally fought their way back with scrum-half David O'Mahony stealing around from the back of the scrum to the blind side to dive over in the right corner. Stephen O'Connor added another when he ploughed his way through from a five-yard scrum before Craig Whelan finally put a shine on the score with the home side's fourth try six minutes from the end.