Time to get some pride back

Over the Christmas holiday period I met the former French internationals, Jean Gealiassia, who older rugby followers will probably remember by the nickname of "Peter Pan", Jean Michaell Ag and Roland Bertranne. They were lamenting the state of French rugby following the concession of 60 points to the touring Springboks in the last Test of their tour in Parc des Princes.

Now, two months later, Ireland travel to Paris and the expectation this time is that the French will inflict a similar defeat on Ireland.

The French believe that their recent successes are attributable to the exclusion of some older players which in turn has brought about a more youthful attitude allied to a more mature performance. The weakness of the opposition must also be taken into account.

The French are, of course, fortunate that they are in a position to introduce such innovations since the number of really good players available to them is huge in comparison with Ireland.

In our position the situation is greatly different. Consider, for instance, the inclusion of Rob Henderson in the team to play in Paris without having played a serious match since December 13th last. This is an astonishing selection and is a great disappointment to several other centres with aspirations to play for Ireland.

It also flies in the face of what we have been hearing in the recent past about players being selected on current form. It might be excusable if he were an outstanding player but he is not.

Ireland's record against France for the past number of years has been very poor. There was a time when courage, determination and discipline kept the more talented, but less disciplined French, within our reach. However, the changes in the game and the great improvement in French discipline has widened the margin considerably.

I also believe that an enormous psychological barrier has built up on our performances in Paris and the present state of flux in Irish organisation has added to the many misgivings which we have.

Irish teams, over the years, have convinced themselves that they should not run at the French and that, to do so, we would lead to the concession of tries in French counter-attacks. Yet, Scotland have scored some notable victories by doing what we have refused to do.

I do not believe that the Irish team will lack possession this afternoon. The whole question then is: what do we do with the ball when we have it? Hopefully we will not kick it back to them but try to run at them instead, particularly around the edges of the rucks and mauls like the Scots did.

If we want to use runners we should do so off Eric Elwood on his outside. We should also concentrate on rucking the ball rather than mauling. French teams, in general, prefer to stay upright and are quite untidy when it comes to rucking and are inclined to concede penalties is such situations.

The French have always shown themselves to be very inventive in attack and this is even more obvious at the moment. Their main instigators are the scrum half Carboneau, Castaignede, the outhalf and their fullback, Sadourny. The Scottish defence was naive, to say the least, in their efforts to counteract these players.

I suspect that Warren Gatland will instruct the Irish defence to line up very flat, even bordering on the offside. We must also defend the right hand side of our scrums from Sadourny at all costs.

In the midst of the very poor Irish performance against Scotland, there were some flashes of decent play. The question is: can we put together a sufficient number of periods of pressure this afternoon?

If ever an Irish team entered a Five Nations match as complete and utter outsiders it is this one. This situation will lead to enormous expectations from the French supporters. Warren Gatland will be telling his players that, if they can stay in the match for the first 30 minutes, anything will be possible, particularly if we can frustrate the French sufficiently to lure them into errors.

If we concede early points the prospects are frightening. If, however, some big tackles are made and the French are knocked back early on, we could get a respectable performance.

Everything I have heard and read about Warren Gatland encourages me. He did a superb job with Connacht this year against high quality opposition. It remains to be seen if he can repeat that kind of success at this level.

The Irish side is not lacking in physique and, while they may not be technically as good as their opponents, they can, by sheer determination and by a willingness to sacrifice themselves in a tackle, go a long way to put some pride back into Irish rugby.

The French front row is enormously strong and physical and can intimidate the opposition. The performance of the Irish front row this afternoon will be a reasonable indicator as to how the whole match will go. If Corrigan, Wood and Wallace fail to match their opponents, the French back row will have a platform from which to create havoc in the Irish defence.

Attacking back rows can only perform positively if their front five gives them the freedom to do so. The French have always understood this very well and this particular back row is one of the most exciting they have fielded for years.

With Irish expectations at an all-time low and with a victory being a very unlikely result, we should at least, set minimum goals for this afternoon. As a former All Black, Warren Gatland will expect his team to deliver a performance which allows them to walk off the pitch afterwards with their heads held high. That, in itself, would be an improvement on a lot of recent performances and revive a little hope for a brighter future.

In an interview with Sean Kilfeather.