Classic win over France fuels hope of even better to come from Ireland

Ireland 32 France 19

If it was hard not to over-hype this meeting of the world’s top-two ranked sides beforehand, how on earth do you this game justice afterwards? After a wild, spellbinding first-half and a captivating second period, the spine-tingling feelgood factor endured for hours and will continue to do so.

Like the performances of the ridiculously good Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, James Ryan, Andrew Porter, Hugo Keenan et al, the twists and turns, skill levels, ball in play time, ambition and, save for one exception when Uini Atonio somehow wasn’t red carded, the controlled aggression of both sides was off the charts – and all liberally sprinkled with wondrous individual moments, some loose passes and unpredictable bouncing balls.

Genuinely, it’s hard to think of any Six Nations match in this ground being as thrilling. What made it even more memorable is that Ireland outlasted the reigning Grand Slam champions to end their 14-match unbeaten run and, by the end, fairly emphatically as well.

For sure, the threat of Antoine Dupont, Ethan Dumortier and slippery Damian Penaud, especially in broken play, remained until the final whistle. They accounted for 26 of Ireland’s 39 missed tackles. Yet in the final analysis, Ireland won by four tries to one, were also held up four times over the line, and left other chances behind. Ireland spent over nine minutes in the opposition 22 as against less than a minute in their own 22.

As expected, Ireland were fresher as well as more cohesive, and duly finished the stronger. In a game featuring just five scrums, 15 penalties and 17 lineouts, the 46 minutes and 15 seconds of ball-in-play time was almost 10 minutes more than last year’s meeting in Paris (36 minutes, 29 seconds) and that suited Ireland.

France had more of the bounce of the ball in that madcap opening 40 minutes and were a little fortunate to be only 22-16 adrift, as Ireland could easily have done more damage on the scoreboard.

“There’s plenty more, I couldn’t put a percentage on that,” said Ireland coach Andy Farrell. “Being clinical is something that we’ve done in patches. Being consistent with that is a work-on, obviously.”

In some ways this win was even better in the long run than the second and third Test victories in New Zealand. Ireland had 13 ever-present starters in that series, of whom Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, Jamison Gibson-Park and Robbie Henshaw were ruled out here.

Furthermore, Ireland lost their main man, Johnny Sexton, in the 49th minute yet ultimately every single one of the 23 match-day squad contributed significantly to this performance.

Farrell’s team is based on the firmest of foundations, namely set pieces, accuracy at the breakdown, skills and, perhaps most of all, his favourite rock, the defence. It takes some effort to stop the French juggernauts in their tracks, but the pride Ireland take in their defence is demonstrated in their energy, work-rate, desire, tackle execution and scrambling.

As well as the individualism and their offloading game, France surprised both Farrell and a disappointed Fabien Galthié with their ambition to run from deep in the first-half, before resorting to type in the second. Yet they were restricted to just one wonderful 85-metre try out of nothing, aided by a slightly lucky bounce by Penaud and a wondrous offload from Anthony Jelonch, the pick of their utterly eclipsed backrow.

Ireland again played with variety and intelligence. They can resort to a pick-and-go power game, play to the edges and can kick – and generally do each at the right time.

They scored the first try through a sweetly worked, planned move after Doris ran through the 145kg Uini Atonio from a goal line restart.

Finlay Bealham shaped as if to feed Conor Murray’s decoy wrap before passing inside for Keenan – who is becoming more and more of an attacking threat – to accelerate between Romain Ntamack and Thomas Ramos with eager support runners either side of him.

James Lowe’s contorted finish, if perhaps brushing the touchline, from Garry Ringrose’s superb pass was the product of again going wide to telling effect.

The pick-and-jams didn’t yield their customary reward against some superb French defence but still earned a deserved try for Andrew Porter to mark his 50th cap.

With major oomph from all of the replacements, not least the dynamic Tom O’Toole, Ireland protected their lead by playing territory. Ringrose’s bonus-point finish from that wondrous Doris pass was an overdue moment of glory for his outstanding form.

Such is this team’s ability to execute at a high level when fatigued that another five or ten minutes might have yielded even more.

“Credit to the lads, that’s why I’m so proud of their character,” said Farrell “because we got ourselves into positions to win well, I thought, but we didn’t. We kept them in the game from time to time but at the same time the fight and the character – Bundee [Aki] going back for the loose ball, Garry Ringrose was completely out on his feet at one stage and then found a way to score the try. He came back and took the single lift on the kick-out himself.

“Tom O’Toole’s played no rugby at all; he came on making line breaks and unbelievable carries. Bundee’s not played any rugby, Rónan [Kelleher] has been out injured for a couple of weeks and the performance that he showed, and then you look at what Caelan did!

“James Ryan at one stage there, he kept getting up off the floor and the ball kept getting passed to him. I mean, he couldn’t get out of the way at one stage so his stats must be absolutely through the roof.” They were. Ryan made 13 carries and led the tackle count with 17 on his 50th cap.

“I think it was a gigantic performance as far as character was concerned,” said Farrell, by no means overstating things.

[ Six Nations 2023: Five things we learned from Ireland’s win over France ]

Scoring sequence: 5 mins Ramos pen 0-3; 9 mins Keenan try, Sexton con 7-3; 15 mins Ramos pen 7-6; 18 mins Penaud try, Ramos con 7-13; 21 mins Lowe try 12-13; 27 mins Porter try, Sexton con 19-13; 33 mins Ramos pen 19-16; 40 (+1) mins Sexton pen 22-16; (half-time 22-16); 60 mins Byrne pen 25-16; 62 mins Ramos drop goal 25-19; 72 mins Ringrose try, Byrne con 32-19.

IRELAND: Hugo Keenan (Leinster); Mack Hansen (Connacht), Garry Ringrose (Leinster), Stuart McCloskey (Ulster), James Lowe (Leinster); Johnny Sexton (Leinster, capt), Conor Murray (Munster); Andrew Porter (Leinster), Rob Herring (Ulster), Finlay Bealham (Connacht); Tadhg Beirne (Munster), James Ryan (Leinster); Peter O’Mahony (Munster), Josh van der Flier (Leinster), Caelan Doris (Leinster).

Replacements: Rónan Kelleher (Leinster) for Herring (26 mins), Iain Henderson (Ulster) for Beirne (46), Ross Byrne (Leinster) for Sexton (49), Jack Conan (Leinster) for O’Mahony, Craig Casey (Munster for Murray (both 57), Tom O’Toole (Ulster) for Bealham (62), Bundee Aki (Connacht) for McCloskey (66), David Kilcoyne (Munster) for Porter (70).

FRANCE: Thomas Ramos (Toulouse); Damian Penaud (Clermont), Gaël Fickou (Racing 92), Yoram Moefana (Bordeaux-Bègles), Ethan Dumortier (Lyon); Romain Ntamack (Toulouse), Antoine Dupont (Toulouse); Cyril Baille (Toulouse), Julien Marchand (Toulouse), Uini Atonio (La Rochelle); Thibaud Flament (Toulouse), Paul Willemse (Montpellier); Anthony Jelonch (Toulouse), Charles Ollivon (Toulon), Grégory Alldritt (La Rochelle).

Replacements: Sipili Falatea (Bordeaux-Bègles) for Alldritt (26 mins) and for Atonio (58), Romain Taofifuena (Lyon) for Willemse (46), Sekou Macalou (Stade Francais) for Alldritt (52), Reda Wardi (La Rochelle) for Baille (58), Matthieu Jalibert (Bordeaux-Bègles) for Ramos (62), François Cros (Toulouse) for (70), Gaëtan Barlot (Castres) for Marchand (74). Not used: Baptiste Couilloud (Lyon).

Sinbinned: Atonio (26 mins).

Referee: Wayne Barnes (England).