Opinion: ‘The day France’s Golden Generation rediscovered their sparkle’ with emphatic win over Ireland
France head coach Fabien Galthie and his players celebrating after their win over Ireland.
The phrase Golden Generation had come to represent underachievement long before France took to the field in Ireland.
It conjured images of the England national football team through the 2000s winning nothing despite the lavish talent at its disposal.
The individual brilliance of David Beckham, Michael Owen and Rio Ferdinand, the undeniable class of Frank Lampard, John Terry and Steven Gerrard. Zilch to show for any of it.
So when the France rugby team arrived at the Aviva for the fixture with more crunch than Le Crunch and saw the GG prefix attached to the Tricolour, they had no other choice.
It was merde or bust, now or never, for the likes of Antoine Dupont, perhaps the greatest ever to play the game, Romain Ntamack, Damian Penaud, Greg Alldritt and Thomas Ramos.
Emphatic response
On a titanic afternoon in Dublin their response was emphatic. Five tries in the backyard of an Ireland side favoured to claim the first outright ‘three-peat’ in championship history.
A record French points total on Irish soil against opponents who wiped the floor with them in Marseille a year ago. And with it a shot in the arm of momentum which will surely carry them to the title in Paris next Saturday.
“The secret was to play the whole 80 minutes with all of the intensity that we have,” man of the match Louis Bielle-Biarrey said afterwards. “I think we done a job.”
Didn’t they just and despite losing Dupont to injury inside the first half hour and making the game’s first 38 tackles as Ireland flew out of the traps determined to give departing legends Peter O’Mahony, Cian Healy and Conor Murray a fitting send-off.
This was a triumph for head coach Fabien Galthie who had staked his reputation on forward muscle, picking 15 forwards in his 23 and using each and every one of them inside the first 50 minutes to batter Ireland into submission.
Between minutes 43 and 78 they helped themselves to 34 unanswered points, turning a 13-8 deficit into 42-13 rout. On either side of the ball they were brutal, ruthless and clinical.
Yet midway through the first half you would have got good odds on a France win of any sort, let alone blowing Ireland away. They had none of the pill, almost no territory and Ireland’s tackle count was a mere 17.
In a match billed by Planet Rugby columnist David Campese as the “battle of rugby’s perennial under-achievers” France were staring at a blank year, another to add to the last 15 in which they have won precisely one Six Nations title.
They needed Ireland to give them a leg-up just to get into the contest, yet once Joe McCarthy had done that, with a needless and foolish off-the ball obstruction on Ramos which saw him yellow carded, the visitors were in business.
Within a minute the electric Bielle-Biarrey had the first of his two tries and, although Dupont then hurt his knee and needed carrying from the field, Maxime Lucu came on and they didn’t miss a beat.
Ireland are too potent a side not to fashion a response and, once McCarthy returned, first reduced the deficit then went ahead through Dan Sheehan’s neatly worked try soon after half-time.
‘Not prepared to buckle’
But France were not prepared to buckle, to have another trophy-tilt go the same way as their home World Cup which they started as worthy favourites and did not make it past the quarter-finals.
Every time Ireland scored the men in blue were next on the scoreboard. No sooner had Sam Prendergast converted Sheehan’s score than Paul Boudehent was over at the other end.
Then came five French forward replacements all together and, after Calvin Nash was carded, Bielle-Biarrey bagged his second, an exquisite piece created out of nothing by Penaud and finished by the out-and-out pace of his fellow wing.
Oscar Jegou dotted down the bonus point fourth, Penaud the fifth, despite France being down a man with Francois Cros in the bin, after Ramos intercepted under his own posts.
The game was done at that point, no matter that Ireland finished with two consolation tries. France had long since downed tools, their thoughts turned to Paris and Scotland seven days from now.
Ireland can point to losing James Lowe to a back spasm in the warm-up, but their excuses pretty much end there. As Brian O’Driscoll conceded they were “lucky” to only lose by 15.
For this was the day the Golden Generation rediscovered their sparkle, at last shone as brightly as the individual talent at their disposal demands. Now to finish the job.
Beat Scotland and the monkey is off their back, no more what-might-have-beens and comparisons to Becks, Lamps, Stevie G and Co.
They are 80 minutes from finally getting to wear the crown.
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