Ireland and France exceed all expectations with game for the ages
Anticipation and reality rarely match up on the balance sheet. Not with games like this. How many World Cup finals or Heineken Cup deciders have come up short on some line of the ledger? Too tight, too attritional, too cagey. Too-one sided, maybe. This one, somehow, exceeded the hype.
The stadium on Lansdowne Road has housed every human emotion in its long history. Everything from euphoria to agony. Giddy describes the place best here. Giddiness mixed with a cocktail of wonder and almost disbelief. We had hoped for the game of the Championship, we were given a game for the ages.
SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2023
Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.
SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2023
Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.
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The abandon shown on the pitch during this exceptional Six Nations tie infected every inch of the Aviva. No-one was safe. Ireland’s performance analyst Vinny Hammond captured the mood when he laughed in wonderment at the brilliance of the execution that brought up Ireland’s first try, for Hugo Keenan, nine minutes in.
Twenty minutes later and the cameras had switched to the French coaching box where the granite visages we associate with these images was replaced by a handful of men clutching their hair and careering back in their chairs. That about summed it up. This was chaotically entertaining and totally indifferent to your nerves.
So much has been said about the match-going experience at the Aviva Stadium this last few months. The IRFU had even carried out a survey on it and new signs around the venue urged supporters to refrain from leaving their seats during play. Not such a problem with fare like this.
The first half alone crammed more into it than any Netflix series could handle. The tournament has opened the doors of the six dressing-rooms to the streaming service in a bid to extend the Championship’s appeal but all these boardroom decisions and PR campaigns are empty content without the game and this was the game at its best.
The first three tries all had their own claims to be the day's pinnacle: Keenan’s a triumph of geometry, movement and training ground prep: Damian Penaud’s a tribute act to the old French joie de vivre; and James Lowe’s an act of athleticism that no wide receiver will better in Sunday’s Super Bowl.
The absence of inhibition from two teams of such talent, and playing at the top of their game, was electrifying. All the more so given the stakes at play in terms of a Six Nations title and the possibility of a rematch on French soil at the World Cup later this year. Consequences? Damn the consequences.
Amid all the jaw-dropping drama there was a kicked clearance from Lowe clattering off an overhead TV wire, a shocking decision by referee Wayne Barnes when failing to show Uini Atonio a red for a high hit on Rob Herring, and the loss off Johnny Sexton with over half-an-hour to go.
If the second-half didn’t match up to the opener then it was hardly a shock. It was as if the half-time break just couldn’t have been long enough for the players to catch their breath but the restart brought with it a different tone. Less scores, more tactical kicking, even a drop goal.
It was as if the game was too big, too good to stick to the one genre. This was the sporting equivalent of a sci-fi western or a Mafia comedy. What didn’t change was the French refusal to be shaken off despite all of Ireland’s efforts. Time and again the hosts threatened to pull away. They were held inches short at least half-a-dozen times.
The game wasn’t made safe until Garry Ringrose scampered over with eight minutes to go. You could be picky and say that the greatest of contests down the years have gone the full distance but then this may not be the end of the brutal ballet between these two exceptional sides in 2023.
Ireland closed this one out with two third-choice props, a third-choice scrum-half and an out-half who might have been fifth in the pecking order at the start of November on the field of play. They claimed a second bonus-point win in as many rounds but that’s all for another day. This was magical in its own right. A day, and a game, apart.
