Having attended yesterday's game and therefore in a far better position than most on the board to comment on it, the French seemed to lack cohesion early on and seemed less up for it than the Irish. A really strange wind was blowing passes that were clearly backwards in a forward direction, forcing the receivers to chase after them (pretty much all kicks towards one end of the ground were low and short as anything high was coming back over the head.

The French got pinged quite heavily for offside and this too disrupted them. They only came to life late on in the game and pulled it back from 16 to nil back to sixteen 12. On paper they were much stronger but they didn't seem to produce on the day. A couple of the French lads couldn't control their tempers (although niggle merchant Bob Beswick seemed only too keen to get them wound up).

Both sides slowed the tackle area down and it is a little bit of a shame they were allowed to do that as it slowed the game down as well. Ireland managed the conditions better and wanted the win more.

These games are played at the same time every year, in fact, in the clubhouse there are two Jerseys showing the last time Ireland and France met at Tallaght (really nice ground) and it was on 26 October 2010. So you can pretty much predict when the internationals are taking place Him. Good turnout from locals and from a load of French students studying in Dublin gave a good atmsophere to the fixture.

Great result Ireland, truly a woo hoo moment!

they can still qualify though for the next 4 nations, the big one will be Scotland v France, they will prob bring in a few players that were missing for the Ireland defeat.

I know it has probably been said a million times on this forum already, but the only way to really make the french international team competitive, is if someone pumps a massive amount of money into the french league to make it a full time professional competition. Whilst I like the Catalans and do think they have a number of good homegrown players, 1 professional team is not a big enough player pool to sustain an international side who can compete at the highest level and they should be competing in France against other full time professional sides.

They could even then have some sort of Heineken Cup style competition every year.

Disagree, nz are competitive without a national pro league. Reality is, like nz, you need around 80-100 players playing in NRL or SL. Getting more French players in the Dragons squad plus bringing in another French club to SL plus more SL and NRL clubs scouting the best 16-20 year old French jnrs will eventually make them competitive. Having 12-15 French players in NRL or so regularly playing is t going to make much difference to the French INternational performances.

Nice one Mable