Six Nations

France forget dark arts and look to future with fear

· France 26-21 Ireland
· Click here to watch match highlights (UK only)

It was a footnote from the weekend but perhaps a significant one as French eyes turned from a scrambled victory against Ireland on Saturday to the arrival of England and Italy in the coming weeks. Sylvain Marconnet, the prop who has been the mainstay of the France pack in recent years, returned from injury to play for 30 minutes on Friday night in a club game.

The France coach, Marc Lièvremont, would not admit to having a front-row crisis but the past two weekends tell a different story. Pieter de Villiers and Olivier Milloud have also been sidelined by injury and Jean-Baptiste Poux hurt his thigh shortly before the tournament started. Currently there are Argentinians and Italians aplenty propping up the top 14 club sides but not many Frenchmen.

The France scrum creaked against Scotland and was ripped to pieces in the final half-hour by the Irish. Assuming Andrew Sheridan avoids contact with insects and Phil Vickery's body is intact, England will be a far more worrying prospect. Italy's arrival may be four weeks away but Martin Castrogiovanni and company are equally redoubtable, so both Marconnet and Poux will be in the mix as Lièvremont decides on his 22 to face England, to be announced on Wednesday.

It would be stretching the truth to describe Ireland as a destructive scrummaging side but the France tight five were put through the mill once Lionel Faure and Dimitri Szarzewski were replaced by Julien Brugnaut and William Servat. As Australia found out in the World Cup, if the set piece is in trouble a team will go backwards. That was brutally obvious as Ireland came back from a 20-point deficit in the final half-hour.

Along the way the French conceded their first penalty try for a collapsed scrum since 1997, something which will not go down well in their rugby heartlands where the dark arts of front-row play are taken seriously. The party line from the French was that it was a collective failure, but the fact that Brugnaut left the pitch as soon as the match ended - no lap of honour, no handshakes with the Irish - implied that he did not see it that way.

Lièvremont yesterday said that he felt France had played poorly from the start, despite Vincent Clerc's searing hat-trick of tries in the first half making a total of five in this tournament, equalling the French record. They were now, the coach said, worried about England. "Just as Ireland were a bigger test than Scotland, England will be harder again. Physically they have a far more intense way of playing."

The only consolation, apart from the effervescent form being shown by France's backs, was that team spirit is built by tests such as this. "You learn a lot by suffering in this way," said Lièvremont.

That may sound complacent but for five young replacements with five caps between them such a baptism of fire may prove valuable. "We've learnt a big lesson. Now we've seen how the young guys can handle a situation like that," said the France defence coach, David Ellis, whose charges put in twice as many tackles as the Irish.

The men in green, on the other hand, can draw little more from this performance than from their near-defeat against Italy. They were ripped apart for the first 50 minutes as the fly-half, David Skrela, delivered the ball with a verve he never showed under Bernard Laporte. Aurélien Rougerie, Clerc and Cédric Heymans counterattacked with gusto, the defining moment being when the full-back, Heymans, drew three Irish defenders to set up Clerc's third try.

Ireland do not have the excuse of being a work in progress as France so clearly are. They looked devoid of speed and remained prone to clumsy handling. The French lamented that they are scoring mainly from turnover ball, but their rapidity of thought and execution in Saturday's first half suggests that the finished work may soon be a thing of deadly beauty.

France: Heymans (Toulouse); Rougerie (Clermont-Auvergne), Marty (Perpignan), Traille (Biarritz), Clerc (Toulouse); Skrela (Stade Français; Trinh-Duc, Montpellier, 77), Elissalde (Toulouse; Parra, Bourgoin, 65); Faure (Sale; Brugnaut, Dax, 47), Szarzewski (Stade Français; Servat, Toulouse, 47), Mas, (Perpignan), Nallet (Castres, capt), Mela (Albi; Jacquet, Clermont-Auvergne, 50), Dusautoir (Toulouse), Ouedraogo (Montpellier; Picamoles, Montpellier, 63), Bonnaire (Clermont-Auvergne).

Tries Clerc 3, Heymans. Cons Elissalde 3.

Ireland: Dempsey (Leinster); Murphy (Leicester), B O'Driscoll (Leinster, capt), Trimble (Ulster), Kearney (Leinster); O'Gara (Munster), Reddan (Wasps); Horan (Munster), Jackman (Leinster; Best, Ulster, 60), Hayes (Munster; Buckley, Munster, 79), O'Callaghan (Munster), O'Kelly (Leinster; M O'Driscoll, Munster, 56), Leamy (Munster), Wallace (Munster), Heaslip (Leinster).

Tries Penalty try, Wallace. Con O'Gara. Pens O'Gara 3.

Referee N Owens (Wales). Attendance 76,500.

Clerc's rapid start

Vincent Clerc's hat-trick of tries was his second in international rugby, the first having come against Namibia at the 2007 World Cup

His five tries in this Six Nations equals the French tournament record, held by Patrick Estève, Éric Bonneval, Émile Ntamack and Philippe Bernat-Salles

He is only three tries behind the tournament record of eight tries held by England's Cyril Lowe (1914) and Ian Smith of Scotland (1925)

His 20 international tries place him eighth in France's all-time list, level with Aurélien Rougerie and Patrice Lagisquet. Serge Blanco (38), Philippe Saint-André (32), Philippe Sella (31), Bernat-Salles (26), Christophe Dominici (25), Ntamack (24) and Christian Darrouy (23) are ahead of Clerc

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