ANY TIME FRANCE looked to pull themselves back into the game against Ireland last Friday, Andy Farrell’s team managed to summon a response.
After Damian Penaud scored his side’s first try just before half-time, Ireland came back out and added their third through Calvin Nash five minutes after the restart. When Paul Gabrillagues stretched over to score France’s second, Ireland shrugged off the loss of Peter O’Mahony to a yellow card and took control of the territory game again before Dan Sheehan bagged the bonus-point score.
In a packed Stade Vélodrome which had been rocking long before kick-off, the home support were stunned into silence.
That ability to respond to setbacks with such confidence was one of the stand-out characteristics of an excellent team performance as Ireland got their Six Nations campaign off to a dream start.
“It was something we talked about, trying to stay calm, it’s something we probably learned playing them over here a few years ago,” said Ireland flanker Josh van der Flier.
“Some lads obviously wouldn’t have experienced playing France away, it’s always a very tough game to play and the atmosphere, we talked about France having those good patches in the game where the crowd would be going crazy and you wouldn’t be able to hear anything, and they’re on top a little bit.
“Whenever we got those periods we kind of stayed calm. We were mentally prepared for it, we talked about it which, I think, helped a lot and it was great to be able to execute that, that when they did something good we were able to bounce back and push back.”
Ireland’s ability to stay composed under pressure owes much to the work of performance coach Gary Keegan, but Van der Flier also highlighted the role of new Ireland captain O’Mahony on the night.
As I mentioned with the atmosphere, it’s something that we talked about. You’re kind of prepared for those things and then the leadership of Pete, I thought he was brilliant on Friday.
“There was times when they scored that the crowd was going crazy and it was getting to be a pretty close game and he was just…there wasn’t even a raised voice, he was just calm, just telling us to get back into it and he had given us clear messages.
“I think that was there from a leadership point of view and then, having spoken about it and it’s something that we work on, it’s in a good place.
“But it’s one of those things, you have to keep continually working on it. If you don’t address it one week, that’s when things can go against you a bit. But it’s definitely been a strength of ours, I think, over the last couple of years and we’ll keep working on it.”
The 38-17 victory leaves Ireland in pole position to win back-to-back Six Nations titles, and keeps alive the possibility of becoming the first team to win successive Grand Slams in the Six Nations era. With one game, any fears around lingering World Cup pain has shifted to optimism about the coming weeks and months.
“I think one thing I’ve found which has been brilliant is a lot of the narrative is it’s a new start, it’s a new cycle or whatever, that certainly wasn’t the case with how we’ve gone about it in the last few weeks, it’s just been ‘right, what have we learned from New Zealand, what have we been doing well’.
It’s almost a continuation on from where the squad has been, I suppose we’re still taking learnings along the way and it’s almost like the World Cup was a stepping stone to keep going, to keep improving.
“That’s kind of been the mindset that Andy has been driving with us and that obviously helped [against France].”
Van der Flier added that he was particularly pleased to see Jack Crowley, Joe McCarthy and Calvin Nash all make such important contributions on their first Six Nations start.
“Fair play to Jack, it’s a hard position to play at any time, never mind with the French coming at you hard, he did really well.
“Joe was brilliant as always, destroying mauls and running hard, and then Calvin as well did really, really well, I was very proud of the three lads, they really put in a big shift.”
