[2025 Six Nations] Ireland vs France - 8/3/25

[BrokenWing]

Someone's had a drink

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Irish fans are holier than thou about the Dupont injury when I know for a fact that had the roles been reversed, they would have been screaming blue murder. I'm not changing my opinion - it was a horrible clear-out and Ireland have been doing that kind of thing for years. It's dangerous play. Galthie comes across as bitter a fair bit of the time but on this occasion I agree with him. It was a cheap shot.

PSDT injured Sheehan's acl with a clear out that ended up off his feet and beyond the ruck and that didn't happen because the initial attempt at rucking was fair, so there you go, confidently wrong again.

You're seeing what you want to see (clearly, you obviously don't know better than an international referee, TMO and the world rugby citing commission, but some hubris to be fair). Dupont is the most protected player in the game, if there was anything remotely wrong with the incident it would have been penalised and punished accordingly.

Jealousy is a bad look.

 

[munstermuffin]

If we rewatch the incident. There is alot of mitigating factors.
1. Dupont originally was actually off feet and had knee on Dan Sheehan.
2. Dan Sheehan was in way legally and Dupont miscalculated that and became unbalanced due to that.
3. This is the most important point. The French 5 actually backed out which meant Porter drove Beirne but the French 5 retreated so actually it was the French 5 failure to protect his 9.
4. If someone can say it was deliberate then easy say they never played the game. Look at it from Beirne POV. Porther driving him full pelt. He can't control that. And Porter POV. He seen French 5 and has to drive so could have done nothing else.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

Kinda rich accusing the Irish of targeting a player. Gotta be honest here, i didn't see many of the Irish posters complaining about how other teams targeted Sexton. Are we going to pretend like that never happened?
I don't think there was any intention to hurt DP here. Drag him along, maybe, but that's it.

About the game, i don't agree with many here. I saw a solid, but not spectacular, France. And a very poor (by their own standards) Ireland. The first yc was borderline childish and cost you dearly. France's second try, well, that's one to argue about... The second YC was unlucky imo. 20 mins with 14, vs France...
France's third try was comical. Had Ire 4 been a bit more alert, like he usually is 99% of the time, and all of this would have been a non issue. Couldda, wouldda, shouldda, i know. But there is a track record we need to look at here, and we need to understand if what happened was a bug or a feature.

So of course Ireland have no one but themselves to blame, but so many things were so uncharacteristic that i feel have to give them a bit of the benefit of the doubt. Bad games happen. You are obviously not as bad as the media is currently portraying you. If a injury free Ire vs Fra was to take place next week, i'd say it's 50-50.

 

[mikebrownsauce1512]

Wow France, genuinely the best team itw on their day. When everything comes together for them they are unstoppable, outrageously big, athletic and skilful with amazing depth. Watching them do that to Ireland in Dublin was nuts.

 

[Batsumy]

Ah yes I forgot about that pesky Top14…what was I thinking…
let's see, Antoine was back playing in October when the league restarted late August. Antoine has played (official LNR stats) THREE Top14 games this season for a total of 195 min. In comparison he has played SEVEN games (3 Nov tests+4 6N) for a total of 464 minutes…
But hey the Top14 is killing him!! And Stade Toulousain are just a bunch of slave drivers paying him that astronomical salary and picking up the medical tab again, where is the League for the Defense of Human Rights when we need them…. I have blocked you, so save yourself et ferme ton claque à merde.

Rooh Monsieur is a bit touchy huh ??? I'm sure you will be able to remind us that in the last 3 full seasons, Dupont played 27, 29 and 30 matches, he had one season where he was partly injured in 2019 and then the seeasons before again he was averaagely around the 30 matches a year. As a comparison, JGP is playing max 25 match a season. I'm not even talking of 10 years ago where some french players were playing regularly up to 35 matches a year when other nation players are averageley playing between 20 and 25 matches !!!! Yes all this for the beauty of the top14 As much as it must be hard for Antoine to have to go through the surgery and the recovery, at least he will be protected from the top14 in the next 8-9 months which is not bad in some ways, we are counting on him for the next world cup and it would be nice if he was still in 1 piece by then

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Kinda rich accusing the Irish of targeting a player. Gotta be honest here, i didn't see many of the Irish posters complaining about how other teams targeted Sexton. Are we going to pretend like that never happened?
I don't think there was any intention to hurt DP here. Drag him along, maybe, but that's it.

About the game, i don't agree with many here. I saw a solid, but not spectacular, France. And a very poor (by their own standards) Ireland. The first yc was borderline childish and cost you dearly. France's second try, well, that's one to argue about... The second YC was unlucky imo. 20 mins with 14, vs France...
France's third try was comical. Had Ire 4 been a bit more alert, like he usually is 99% of the time, and all of this would have been a non issue. Couldda, wouldda, shouldda, i know. But there is a track record we need to look at here, and we need to understand if what happened was a bug or a feature.

So of course Ireland have no one but themselves to blame, but so many things were so uncharacteristic that i feel have to give them a bit of the benefit of the doubt. Bad games happen. You are obviously not as bad as the media is currently portraying you. If a injury free Ire vs Fra was to take place next week, i'd say it's 50-50.

Potentially over-emotional performance. I thought that'd help after we played down any significance of NZ in autumn amd were flatter than flat.

Still, two home losses in consecutive test windows is a sign we've dropped off a bit. No alarm bells ringing for me but and we still need to keep the focus on evolution rather than revolution but there's work to do.

To be fair we've seen a complete overhaul in our approach on the ball, I trust the management team see where our strengths are and have planned future incoming players to this approach like 2020-21. Whenever it comes right and peaks, I expect us to be able to live with anyone, the back 5 in the pack should remain as strong as ever until the next WC and players are coming through in these positions mostly. TH and wing are the only major long term concerns I have.

It's also hard to base anything on schools rugby but watching the Leinster cup a bit this year, I saw players in 4 schools who should be jumping to academy level quite smoothly which is more than the usual two and standouts elsewhere.

@Amiga500 is right that the IRFU need the systems in Ulster and Munster to bridge the gap a little bit, or get those kids exposure to Leinster grade coaching underage, because we can't rely on Leinster only, too much of a bottle neck.

I obviously want Ireland to stay in touch with the top 4 but there's going to be periods where we aren't there. If that's the next 12 months and we finish 2026 strong and build into the world cup, I'll have no complaints. England reached a world cup final with a very strong set of players, but not fully an all timer of a squad that way.