Major sporting events are often suffocated by the hype, but on Saturday Ireland and France contested 80 minutes of heart-stopping Test rugby that surpassed all expectations and reaffirmed one team as the world’s best while plunging the other into an unenviable period of soul-searching.
When this year’s Six Nations fixtures were announced back in April, eyes were immediately drawn to Ireland’s home match with 2022’s Grand Slam winners, and the soaring trajectories of both teams in the months that followed only intensified the sense of anticipation.
While Ireland bolstered their status as one of rugby’s northern hemisphere superpowers with a Test series win over the All Blacks in New Zealand and autumn defeats of world champions South Africa and Australia, France just kept on winning.
In fact, Les Bleus rocked up to the Aviva Stadium on Saturday on the back of a 14-game winning run, with Ireland intent on toppling the one side whose scalp had so far eluded them during Andy Farrell’s reign.
The world’s top two sides. A crackling atmosphere. A championship blockbuster dripping with sub-plot and featuring some of the best players on the planet.
It was all set up to disappoint, wasn’t it?
Well, it was, but Ireland and France had other ideas as they swung for each other in a first half so breathless and frenetic that it sealed the match’s place in ‘Greatest Six Nations games’ debates for years to come.
Watching these two well-oiled machines crash into each other in front of 51,000 spellbound spectators was to cast one’s mind back to the great Arsenal and Manchester United Premier League games of the Wenger and Ferguson eras. It was sporting theatre in its purest form.
It may also prove the zenith of a rivalry that has in recent years given us ‘Le Drop’ and last year’s noisy Stade de France thriller, but rugby fans all over will be hoping for another chapter in Paris in the World Cup later this year.
While just the prospect of a knockout match in rugby’s quadrennial showpiece is enough to capture the imagination, any sequel to Saturday’s contest will have to conjure moments like Damian Penaud’s glorious counter-attacking score, or James Lowe’s spectacular leap to the corner for Ireland’s second try, to match the original.
“The first half was [incredible], wasn’t it?,” said Farrell, who has overseen 13 home victories in a row.
“Wow, it was just end-to-end stuff. We all hoped it would be like that, but it certainly was.”
While the significance of the result will not be lost on Ireland, who now have Italy, Scotland and England standing between them and a fourth Grand Slam, the voice of Johnny Sexton – who missed the 2021 and 2022 defeats by France – cut through the post-match elation to remind his team-mates of previous false dawns.
“It’s not worth anything if we let it slip now in terms of against Italy in the next game,” said Sexton, who also paid tribute to half-back partner Conor Murray, who managed 57 minutes at the end of a difficult week off the field.
“That’s what we speak about, keeping the trajectory like this as opposed to in 2019 when we dipped [after winning the Grand Slam in 2018].
“To get better is to win the championship or a Grand Slam. How you do that is concentrate on the next two weeks and try and beat Italy away which, if you saw their game last week [a 29-24 defeat by France], you know how tough a game it’s going to be.”
‘Defeat is not really a friend, but we will have to spend the day with her’
Ireland, however, may add to their growing injury list after a bruising encounter with the French. While Sexton downplayed the groin injury he sustained when Uini Atonio landed on him, hooker Rob Herring was forced off after being clattered high by the brawny La Rochelle prop, resulting in a yellow card for the Frenchman.
Tadhg Beirne, meanwhile, left the stadium in a protective boot, with Farrell conceding that the lock’s injury is “not looking too great”.
With Robbie Henshaw, Tadhg Furlong, Jamison Gibson-Park, Dan Sheehan and Cian Healy already sidelined, it is a concern, but Farrell can be heartened by the contributions his replacements made, from Ross Byrne kicking five points to Tom O’Toole’s proficiency with ball in hand.
With a first half played at breakneck speed something had to give in the second half, but having absorbed waves of blue pressure after Sexton’s withdrawal, Garry Ringrose’s bonus-point try left France staring at a grim post-mortem before hosting a resurgent Scotland in two weeks’ time.
“It is almost two years since we have lost, it is hard to take,” said France head coach Fabien Galthie.
“The series of wins are there, now it is necessary to learn how to take a defeat. Defeat is not really a friend, but we will have to spend the day with her.”
Whether or not France can recover in time to salvage their title defence before hosting the World Cup remains to be seen.
But having ridden the hype to slay the mighty French beast, Farrell’s Ireland have issued their biggest statement yet in their quest for rugby’s biggest prizes.
