IRELAND AS UNDERDOGS in Paris. It’s a tag Irish teams have been all-too familiar with over the years.
Even during the glory days Irish rugby enjoyed from the 2000s on, wins in Paris were special, rare occasions. Since 2000, when Ireland won in the French capital for the first time in almost 30 years, Ireland have visited Paris 11 times, winning twice (2014, 2018) and drawing once (2012) – Ireland also won in 2024 when the fixture was moved south to Marseille.
Before that, Paris represented a place of physical and mental pain for teams wearing green.
Yet it hadn’t always been this way. In the early days of the tournament we now know as the Six Nations, Ireland had the upper hand in the fixture, home and away.
Ireland’s first Five Nations trips to the old Parc des Princes – 1910, 1912 and 1914 – brought three away wins. Indeed, France didn’t beat Ireland at home in the tournament until Ireland’s first visit to Colombes, in northwest Paris, as the world continued to climb out of the First World War in 1921.
A competitive rivalry existed before the sands eventually shifted. France’s first true period of dominance in the fixture came in the 1960s, winning every home game against Ireland across the decade. Ireland punctured that run with a 14-9 win in 1972, but the change of fortune proved short-lived. When Ireland won in ’72, Big Tom had just been knocked off the top of the charts. Mark McCabe’s Maniac 2000 would be ruling the airwaves the next time an Irish team won in Paris. In the years between, Irish fans who made the trip tended to be in for a fright.
Games against Ireland would attract crowds of around 45,000 to the Parc des Princes, and without fail, the home supporters went home happy. In 1976 Ireland managed just three points from John Robbie as the home team scored 26, their heaviest ever loss to Les Bleus. ‘Ireland crash to the bottom of ravine’ read the headline accompanying The Irish Times’ report from the game. “The Parc des Princes is intimidating territory for the invader,” wrote Edmund van Esbeck. “Last Saturday, it proved a chamber of horror for Ireland.”
The Irish Times report from the 1976 game.
Not that all the travelling Irish had a bad day out. Two years before the release of her first book, Maeve Binchy was on assignment in Paris and reported on a post-match exchange between an Irish dentist and his “terribly drunk friend who was lying happily in a café saying he was going to stay there for the rest of his life”.
If said friend did indeed stay on in the City of Light, in 1978 and 1980 he would have watched Ireland twice fall short by just a single point. The ’80 fixture was “there for the taking”, according to the Irish Press, who felt the visitors “were not helped by a number of distinctly odd decisions by the referee”. You’d need a stiff drink after that.
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The rest of the 1980s were more one-sided: France winning 22-9, 25-12, 29-9 and 25-6.
The ’86 loss (29-9) was a sobering day for the Irish forwards. “The reason for Ireland’s eclipse is not difficult to pinpoint,” noted Karl Johnston in The Sunday Press. “Quite simply, the pack was comprehensively destroyed, and was at the receiving end of a fierce roasting from the volatile French forwards whose superiority grew as the game wore on.”
Ginger McLoughlin, Ciaran Fitzgerald, Philip Orr and Fergus Slattery prepare to face in French scrum in 1982. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
Team manager Mick Doyle was equally blunt in his review. “Our major problem was in the scrum, and we were well and truly hockeyed in this area.”
Across the early half of the 1990s the picture only grew worse from an Irish perspective. France won 31-12 in 1990, then thumped their visitors 44-12 in 1992 and 35-15 in 1994.
In case you’re wondering, things weren’t much better in the years when France had to travel to Dublin – Ireland winning at home three times in the ’70s, just once in the 80s and never in the 90s.
The ’96 visit to Paris was pure misery. In the early days of professionalism the gap had grown wider than ever – a 45-10 thumping representing France’s biggest win in the fixture’s history. The fallout of a depressing day included a lengthy ban for Peter Clohessy for an alleged stamp on Olivier Roumat. The Irish Times pondered if the game might signal the end of some of the careers of those involved. Former Ireland international Dónal Spring pointed out “a number of the French tries were scored without missed tackles because we were not even near enough to attempt a tackle”.
“It was as grim as ever it has been at the Parc des Princes,” stated David Walsh in The Sunday Independent. “A day for Irish men to endure, for it could not be enjoyed.” He added: “The IRFU needs to bring an under-prepared team of triers into the new world.”
Ireland in Paris in 1996. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
By the time 1998 arrived, Ireland had lost their previous 13 games against the French, with their last win in Paris coming all the way back in ’72. But change was coming.
The ’98 clash was Warren Gatland’s first as Ireland coach, an unusual twist given the game arrived in round two of the championship. Things were so bad for Ireland at the time that Brian Ashton had left his role following a one-point loss at home to Scotland on the opening weekend. Just 12 months into a six-year contract, Ashton was the fifth Ireland head coach to leave in the 1990s.
Gatland took the hot seat at 34, becoming Ireland’s youngest head coach. Expectations around this latest fresh start were low.
As former Ireland prop Nick Popplewell told The 42 in 2023: “We were getting battered all the time. We were always brilliant in the first 40-50 minutes, and then the last 30, whether through fitness or self-belief, we just folded and that’s when we used to lose matches.”
Yet Gatland managed to reinvigorate the group. Team bonding exercises included a midweek cruise for the players in Clare and organising ‘The Goodwill Irish Rugby Team hotline’ – which resulted in over 2,000 messages pouring in for the players from supporters all around the world. These messages were then posted in Ireland’s team room in France.
“When I first started playing for Ireland we had a big losing streak, and the mood around some of the home games was very poor in terms of the interaction with the crowd,” Richard Wallace previously told The 42. “So to see such positive messages coming through for the team was pretty special.”
And so Ireland went out in front of 78,000 at the newly-opened Stade de France feeling good about themselves again. They battled hard and were surprisingly competitive, losing 18-16 after conceding two late tries on a day when many had feared the record books could well be revisited. “By God it made us feel good about ourselves again,” reported The Irish Independent.
A valiant Irish effort came up short in 1998. Patrick Bolger / INPHO
Patrick Bolger / INPHO / INPHO
Slowly, Ireland were building something.
In the 1999 championship, Gatland’s side finished ahead of bottom-placed France on points difference, by a single point. A year later, Brian O’Driscoll announced himself on the world stage with the hat-trick which delivered Ireland’s first win in Paris for 28 long years. It marked the start of a new chapter for Irish rugby.
Gatland was applauded by the French press as he entered his post-match press conference.
“I reckon there will be a lot of pints consumed this evening,” he told reporters.
“We entered the game reasonably confident and decided to give it a real cut,” added captain Keith Wood. “There’s no doubt Irish rugby is definitely looking up.”
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Ireland in Paris: The misery years
IRELAND AS UNDERDOGS in Paris. It’s a tag Irish teams have been all-too familiar with over the years.
Even during the glory days Irish rugby enjoyed from the 2000s on, wins in Paris were special, rare occasions. Since 2000, when Ireland won in the French capital for the first time in almost 30 years, Ireland have visited Paris 11 times, winning twice (2014, 2018) and drawing once (2012) – Ireland also won in 2024 when the fixture was moved south to Marseille.
Before that, Paris represented a place of physical and mental pain for teams wearing green.
Yet it hadn’t always been this way. In the early days of the tournament we now know as the Six Nations, Ireland had the upper hand in the fixture, home and away.
Ireland’s first Five Nations trips to the old Parc des Princes – 1910, 1912 and 1914 – brought three away wins. Indeed, France didn’t beat Ireland at home in the tournament until Ireland’s first visit to Colombes, in northwest Paris, as the world continued to climb out of the First World War in 1921.
A competitive rivalry existed before the sands eventually shifted. France’s first true period of dominance in the fixture came in the 1960s, winning every home game against Ireland across the decade. Ireland punctured that run with a 14-9 win in 1972, but the change of fortune proved short-lived. When Ireland won in ’72, Big Tom had just been knocked off the top of the charts. Mark McCabe’s Maniac 2000 would be ruling the airwaves the next time an Irish team won in Paris. In the years between, Irish fans who made the trip tended to be in for a fright.
Games against Ireland would attract crowds of around 45,000 to the Parc des Princes, and without fail, the home supporters went home happy. In 1976 Ireland managed just three points from John Robbie as the home team scored 26, their heaviest ever loss to Les Bleus. ‘Ireland crash to the bottom of ravine’ read the headline accompanying The Irish Times’ report from the game. “The Parc des Princes is intimidating territory for the invader,” wrote Edmund van Esbeck. “Last Saturday, it proved a chamber of horror for Ireland.”
Not that all the travelling Irish had a bad day out. Two years before the release of her first book, Maeve Binchy was on assignment in Paris and reported on a post-match exchange between an Irish dentist and his “terribly drunk friend who was lying happily in a café saying he was going to stay there for the rest of his life”.
If said friend did indeed stay on in the City of Light, in 1978 and 1980 he would have watched Ireland twice fall short by just a single point. The ’80 fixture was “there for the taking”, according to the Irish Press, who felt the visitors “were not helped by a number of distinctly odd decisions by the referee”. You’d need a stiff drink after that.
The rest of the 1980s were more one-sided: France winning 22-9, 25-12, 29-9 and 25-6.
The ’86 loss (29-9) was a sobering day for the Irish forwards. “The reason for Ireland’s eclipse is not difficult to pinpoint,” noted Karl Johnston in The Sunday Press. “Quite simply, the pack was comprehensively destroyed, and was at the receiving end of a fierce roasting from the volatile French forwards whose superiority grew as the game wore on.”
Team manager Mick Doyle was equally blunt in his review. “Our major problem was in the scrum, and we were well and truly hockeyed in this area.”
Across the early half of the 1990s the picture only grew worse from an Irish perspective. France won 31-12 in 1990, then thumped their visitors 44-12 in 1992 and 35-15 in 1994.
In case you’re wondering, things weren’t much better in the years when France had to travel to Dublin – Ireland winning at home three times in the ’70s, just once in the 80s and never in the 90s.
The ’96 visit to Paris was pure misery. In the early days of professionalism the gap had grown wider than ever – a 45-10 thumping representing France’s biggest win in the fixture’s history. The fallout of a depressing day included a lengthy ban for Peter Clohessy for an alleged stamp on Olivier Roumat. The Irish Times pondered if the game might signal the end of some of the careers of those involved. Former Ireland international Dónal Spring pointed out “a number of the French tries were scored without missed tackles because we were not even near enough to attempt a tackle”.
“It was as grim as ever it has been at the Parc des Princes,” stated David Walsh in The Sunday Independent. “A day for Irish men to endure, for it could not be enjoyed.” He added: “The IRFU needs to bring an under-prepared team of triers into the new world.”
By the time 1998 arrived, Ireland had lost their previous 13 games against the French, with their last win in Paris coming all the way back in ’72. But change was coming.
The ’98 clash was Warren Gatland’s first as Ireland coach, an unusual twist given the game arrived in round two of the championship. Things were so bad for Ireland at the time that Brian Ashton had left his role following a one-point loss at home to Scotland on the opening weekend. Just 12 months into a six-year contract, Ashton was the fifth Ireland head coach to leave in the 1990s.
Gatland took the hot seat at 34, becoming Ireland’s youngest head coach. Expectations around this latest fresh start were low.
As former Ireland prop Nick Popplewell told The 42 in 2023: “We were getting battered all the time. We were always brilliant in the first 40-50 minutes, and then the last 30, whether through fitness or self-belief, we just folded and that’s when we used to lose matches.”
Yet Gatland managed to reinvigorate the group. Team bonding exercises included a midweek cruise for the players in Clare and organising ‘The Goodwill Irish Rugby Team hotline’ – which resulted in over 2,000 messages pouring in for the players from supporters all around the world. These messages were then posted in Ireland’s team room in France.
“When I first started playing for Ireland we had a big losing streak, and the mood around some of the home games was very poor in terms of the interaction with the crowd,” Richard Wallace previously told The 42. “So to see such positive messages coming through for the team was pretty special.”
And so Ireland went out in front of 78,000 at the newly-opened Stade de France feeling good about themselves again. They battled hard and were surprisingly competitive, losing 18-16 after conceding two late tries on a day when many had feared the record books could well be revisited. “By God it made us feel good about ourselves again,” reported The Irish Independent.
Slowly, Ireland were building something.
In the 1999 championship, Gatland’s side finished ahead of bottom-placed France on points difference, by a single point. A year later, Brian O’Driscoll announced himself on the world stage with the hat-trick which delivered Ireland’s first win in Paris for 28 long years. It marked the start of a new chapter for Irish rugby.
Gatland was applauded by the French press as he entered his post-match press conference.
“I reckon there will be a lot of pints consumed this evening,” he told reporters.
“We entered the game reasonably confident and decided to give it a real cut,” added captain Keith Wood. “There’s no doubt Irish rugby is definitely looking up.”
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