Gallant Irish refuse to buckle

No one died, as Boris Becker once observed when putting sporting defeat into proper perspective. Yet rarely has such a horrible, anti-climactic pall of disappointment hung over Lansdowne Road at the sound of a full-time whistle.

At the end of it you were left wondering how much closer this Irish team can get before actually stepping over the winning line.

Surely they can't get any closer than this, and certainly never have in the last 14 years against France? They did pretty much everything but win. The Irish pack took on the French in the scrums, matched them in the lineouts and lorded the ruck count 57-34 (even if Conor McGuinness still had to go excavating quite a bit).

The ploy of using target runners Eric Miller and Dion O'Cuinneagain further out really stretched the French to breaking point, though to be fair they never broke. Ireland won the possession and territorial graphs and hence earned themselves seven penalties at goal to two.

However, the bottom line is that David Humphreys landed three out of seven, Thomas Castaignede two out of three, and the French scored one of their few chances, while Ireland couldn't quite force home the several half-chances that came their way.

In mitigation of Humphreys, it came after he had thrillingly explored the narrow side. From the attacking line-out, Ireland called everyone up, though it proved to be a decoy. Alas, the 13-man line-out also brought the French backs closer to the action, and instead of standing under his posts Richard Dourthe was in position to make the try-saving tackle of the match on O'Cuinneagain.

In further mitigation of Humphreys, his defence could hardly be faulted save for one instance when caught out of position then missing his tackle on the back foot. While outside him, Rob Henderson and Kevin Maggs were immense.

The ultimate compliment to the Irish midfield defence (and the limitations of the French midfield) was that their counterparts gave up the ghost and simply decided to take Ireland on up front. It would have worked in the past.

However, even then the Irish pack stood up to the French pack chin to chin, even when they threw the kitchen sink at them for much of the last half hour in as hard a match as any of them could ever recall.

Where before on days like this, Ireland would have buckled, this time they weren't for wilting, and with four minutes to go you really believed, like the team had from the kick-off, that Ireland would win.

But far less forgiveable than Humphreys' misses, were the creeping acts of ill-discipline which cost Ireland this victory as much as anything else. After the South African game the Irish management had hammered home the point that they had conceded eight needless penalties.

Because the losing margin was 14 points, it couldn't have been said to have cost Ireland victory that day, but it did this. Twice Peter Clohessy needlessly gave away costly penalties for off-the-ball shoves. They were nothing more, admittedly, and more than most he seems to have to be whiter than white. But then pristine white it's gotta be.

The second, after a huge roar greeted the scrum-back following Thomas Castaignede's penalty to touch, amid the outstanding Keith Wood cheekily applauding the French outhalf's error, stopped a real momentum building up for Ireland at 9-0 up nearing the last quarter.

Trevor Brennan's needless follow through on Philippe Carbonneau gave Castaignede his first longrange penalty at goal, and then for the second Five Nations opener in successive years, Paul Wallace was left to rue a penalty decision which inflicted a one-point defeat.

That's tough to have to live with. Whereas last year's technical scrum infringement against Scotland was a particularly harsh call the adjudgment that he was offside when nabbing Carbonneau at the base of a ruck may also have been marginal, but why risk it anyway? Let them have it, they still had to breach the defence and the numbers were out.

In that, as in much else, Peter Marshall didn't seem to do Ireland too many favours, with Jim Fleming being less vigilant that he could have been too. As with Philippe Benetton's punch on a prone Keith Wood, the two officials missed Carbonneau's retaliatory punch on Wallace which might have meant a reversed penalty.

The French backs could easily have been penalised three or four times more for offside, and one of the few occasions Marshall did so on the half-hour, he then adjudged the advantage to be used up when Humphreys' scuffed his drop goal. What advantage was that?

Furthermore, Humphreys' late penalties in either half should have been a critical few metres closer to goal - the first from the point the ball landed rather than the point where Olivier Magne late-tackled Humphreys, the second for the closer-in offside decision.

To take Castaignede's penalty, come back upfield once more and by sheer dint of willpower, drive the French pack off the ball and earn a reprieving penalty spoke volumes for this Irish pack. To see Humphreys' stroked penalty fade away was a sickener.

As they regrouped in the dressing-room, the Irish squad must have wondered what they'd been in their previous lives. For their sins, they must come back again in two weeks' time to play Wales in Wembley.

But they will. Paddy Johns had tugged the emotional strings with another upbeat, and positive address to his team-mates in the dressing-room, looking forward rather than back. What's done is done. A win would be nice. Just a win. Any old win.

Scoring sequence: 25 mins - Humphreys pen 3-0; 35 mins - Humphreys pen 6-0; 46 mins - Humphreys pen 9-0; 60 mins - Dourthe try, Castaignede con 9-7; 79 mins - Castaignede pen 910.

Ireland: C O'Shea (London Irish); J Bishop (London Irish), K Maggs (Bath), J Bell (Dungannon), G Dempsey (Terenure); D Humphreys (Dungannon), C McGuinness (St Mary's); P Clohessy (Young Munster), K Wood (Harlequins), P Wallace (Saracens), P Johns (Saracens, capt), J Davidson (Castres), E Miller (Terenure), D O'Cuinneagain (Sale), V Costello (St Mary's). Replacements: R Henderson (Wasps) for Bell (15 mins), T Brennan (St Mary's) for Costello (51 mins), J Fitzpatrick (Dungannon) for Wallace (temp 45/47 mins) and for Clohessy (62 mins).

France: E N'Tamack (Toulouse); P Bernat-Salles (Biarritz), R Dourthe (Stade Francais), F Comba (Stade Francais), T Lombard (Stade Francais); T Castaignede (Castres), P Carbonneau (Brive); C Califano (Toulouse), R Ibanez (Perpignan, capt), F Tournaire (Toulouse), O Brouzet (Begles-Bordeaux), F Pelous (Toulouse), P Benetton (Agen), O Magne (Brive), T Lievremont (Perpignan). Replacements: S Marconnet (Stade Francais) for Califano (half-time). T Cleda (Pau) for Pelous (69 mins), D Aucagne (Pau) for T Lombard (80 mins),

Referee: Peter Marshall (Australia).