THE FEELING IN the Ireland dressing room after yesterday’s 42-27 loss to France was almost an alien one. Ireland had won their previous 10 games at the stadium but defeat to les Blues ended that run, and probably killed their hopes of landing an historic third successive Six Nations title.
For the players, the salt in the wound was the failure to send Peter O’Mahony, Cian Healy and Conor Murray out on a high. The three centurions played their final home game for Ireland yesterday and the squad had put a big focus on delivering a performance to match the occasion. With the group also marking the 50th Test caps for Caelan Doris, Finlay Bealham and Jack Conan, it was a bitter end to a day which promised so much.
“Very disappointed,” said Josh van der Flier.
“We probably got quite used to have a winning feeling in the dressing-room especially here at home, we take a lot of pride from playing here in front of our supporters. So yeah it is very disappointing.
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“I particularly felt for the three lads on their 50th caps and the other three playing their last Six Nations game at home. That was a pretty tough situation because obviously it was a very special occasion for them, and we couldn’t get the victory we wanted to get for them.
“Simon [Easterby] spoke very nicely after the game, acknowledging we didn’t get the result we wanted, and the main message was that we will review and there will be a lot of things we won’t be pleased at how we did them in the game. But we will look back on that tomorrow and Monday.
“And then the big focus this evening, we’ve a post-match function, then to spend some time with the lads who got their 50th cap, make sure that it feels special for them. And then the other three lads, they’ll obviously get to see their families this evening. He was talking about the human elements of this game. But also a lot of disappointment in the performance.”
After a closely-fought first half which saw France take an 8-6 lead at the break, Fabien Galthié’s men pulled clear in the second period, crossing for four tries in a second-half surge powered by their 7/1 bench split, which worked to devastating effect as Ireland felt the cost of Calvin Nash’s yellow card. In the first half, France had pounced for the opening try when Joe McCarthy was in the sin bin.
“They’re obviously a quality team and every year it is an incredibly tough test,” Van der Flier said.
“It’s very hard to put it on one thing. Being down to 14 men never helps against a quality team. They played very well. We potentially played very narrow and they caught us down the edges when we were down a man. We’ll have to look back on it and maybe when we tried to force it a bit they capitalised on our mistakes. Disappointing scoreline and we probably let it slip towards the end of the second-half.
“From our side, we had a 6/2 split and the lads who came on did really well and the French side gave them a lot of momentum as well. It’s the way the game is going with the South African model of having large numbers of forwards on the bench and bringing them on. It’s something we’re used to playing against and we’ve had success against it as well. We just didn’t manage to control the momentum they got in the second-half. And credit to them, they were pretty effective.”
Ireland head to Rome next weekend knowing the championship is out of their hands. Ireland play Italy at 2.15pm Irish time on Saturday, before Wales take on England (4.45pm) and France host Scotland in Paris (8pm).
“It is always tricky from an emotional point of view. You are disappointed and there is nothing on (the line) this week in theory.
Ireland's Jack Crowley, Josh van der Flier and Bundee Aki. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
“The way we will look at it is, and what I always find best, is we review the game Monday and Tuesday, get all the bad feelings, the bad emotions, the mistakes you made, the things that stick in the back of your mind, try and think of what we did wrong, how to fix it. And then you close that book, switch to the learnings into the latter part of the week and get excited for the Italy game.
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“It’s obviously an opportunity to win the championship, all we can do is in our control. We are gung-ho for that, and then the added emotion and last Six Nations and potential Irish games for Conor, Cian and Pete. So there will be a bit of a disappointment looking at this game, but no shortage of excitement and energy going into next week.
“From my point of view, thinking of the three lads, when I was in school, those lads were my heroes because they’re obviously a few years older than me. They were the icons of Irish rugby, and Irish rugby legends now.
“I certainly feel a sense of pressure now that we want to make them proud and send them off the way they deserve to be. It was obviously disappointing today with their last home game. But there will be special motivation next week to have a good one for them.”
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'Being down to 14 men never helps against a quality team'
THE FEELING IN the Ireland dressing room after yesterday’s 42-27 loss to France was almost an alien one. Ireland had won their previous 10 games at the stadium but defeat to les Blues ended that run, and probably killed their hopes of landing an historic third successive Six Nations title.
For the players, the salt in the wound was the failure to send Peter O’Mahony, Cian Healy and Conor Murray out on a high. The three centurions played their final home game for Ireland yesterday and the squad had put a big focus on delivering a performance to match the occasion. With the group also marking the 50th Test caps for Caelan Doris, Finlay Bealham and Jack Conan, it was a bitter end to a day which promised so much.
“Very disappointed,” said Josh van der Flier.
“We probably got quite used to have a winning feeling in the dressing-room especially here at home, we take a lot of pride from playing here in front of our supporters. So yeah it is very disappointing.
“I particularly felt for the three lads on their 50th caps and the other three playing their last Six Nations game at home. That was a pretty tough situation because obviously it was a very special occasion for them, and we couldn’t get the victory we wanted to get for them.
“Simon [Easterby] spoke very nicely after the game, acknowledging we didn’t get the result we wanted, and the main message was that we will review and there will be a lot of things we won’t be pleased at how we did them in the game. But we will look back on that tomorrow and Monday.
“And then the big focus this evening, we’ve a post-match function, then to spend some time with the lads who got their 50th cap, make sure that it feels special for them. And then the other three lads, they’ll obviously get to see their families this evening. He was talking about the human elements of this game. But also a lot of disappointment in the performance.”
After a closely-fought first half which saw France take an 8-6 lead at the break, Fabien Galthié’s men pulled clear in the second period, crossing for four tries in a second-half surge powered by their 7/1 bench split, which worked to devastating effect as Ireland felt the cost of Calvin Nash’s yellow card. In the first half, France had pounced for the opening try when Joe McCarthy was in the sin bin.
“They’re obviously a quality team and every year it is an incredibly tough test,” Van der Flier said.
“It’s very hard to put it on one thing. Being down to 14 men never helps against a quality team. They played very well. We potentially played very narrow and they caught us down the edges when we were down a man. We’ll have to look back on it and maybe when we tried to force it a bit they capitalised on our mistakes. Disappointing scoreline and we probably let it slip towards the end of the second-half.
“From our side, we had a 6/2 split and the lads who came on did really well and the French side gave them a lot of momentum as well. It’s the way the game is going with the South African model of having large numbers of forwards on the bench and bringing them on. It’s something we’re used to playing against and we’ve had success against it as well. We just didn’t manage to control the momentum they got in the second-half. And credit to them, they were pretty effective.”
Ireland head to Rome next weekend knowing the championship is out of their hands. Ireland play Italy at 2.15pm Irish time on Saturday, before Wales take on England (4.45pm) and France host Scotland in Paris (8pm).
“It is always tricky from an emotional point of view. You are disappointed and there is nothing on (the line) this week in theory.
“The way we will look at it is, and what I always find best, is we review the game Monday and Tuesday, get all the bad feelings, the bad emotions, the mistakes you made, the things that stick in the back of your mind, try and think of what we did wrong, how to fix it. And then you close that book, switch to the learnings into the latter part of the week and get excited for the Italy game.
“It’s obviously an opportunity to win the championship, all we can do is in our control. We are gung-ho for that, and then the added emotion and last Six Nations and potential Irish games for Conor, Cian and Pete. So there will be a bit of a disappointment looking at this game, but no shortage of excitement and energy going into next week.
“From my point of view, thinking of the three lads, when I was in school, those lads were my heroes because they’re obviously a few years older than me. They were the icons of Irish rugby, and Irish rugby legends now.
“I certainly feel a sense of pressure now that we want to make them proud and send them off the way they deserve to be. It was obviously disappointing today with their last home game. But there will be special motivation next week to have a good one for them.”
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