France fret and sweat as Ireland give them jitters

France 43 - 31 Ireland

Halfway through a grey, cold afternoon in Paris, it seemed laughable that Bernard Laporte could feel anything other than the warm glow of satisfaction that comes from a job well done. In the space of six days his team had been transformed to dramatic effect. It had little to do with the changes made by the coach, although they all worked out well enough, and everything to do with what goes on inside the players' heads. France were buzzing. Sharp and aggressive they were on course to secure a record win in this fixture. Indeed, it looked sure that the 45-10 scoreline from 1996 would be surpassed with heaps of time to spare. Well take a deep breath and laugh your heartiest. Laporte was a nervous wreck by the end.

It was an incredible game of rugby - dead and buried with the final quarter approaching and then exhumed and brought back to life with enough time on the clock for the unthinkable to look probable. If Ireland had ever scored four tries in 11 minutes then nobody in the Stade de France yesterday could remember it. It was an astonishing turnaround that started off as a claim for compensation and turned into a compelling argument for victory.

It began with Ronan O'Gara on 59 minutes. Ireland were trailing by 43-3 at that point, and the out-half was lucky to be on the field. He had been responsible for 14 of those points, from a block down and a grubber kick that turned into a gift. So there they were, huffing and puffing around the French line, and eventually their effort was rewarded with a handy runaround behind the posts. At least it would take the bare look off the score.

Two minutes later they were back for more, running from deep and engineering a mismatch between Gordon D'Arcy and Fabien Pelous. The centre skinned the second-row and with O'Gara's conversion it was 43-17. At that stage you were asking yourself if this quick burst would have annoyed the hosts, if they would respond by turfing the Irish out of the house. A few minutes later they had even more reason to be vexed. This time it was Donncha O'Callaghan scoring from close range after a popped pass by Peter Stringer.

It was then that it dawned on us that it didn't matter how upset they became, because they were fast running out of the energy to do anything about it. So when Andrew Trimble touched down for the fourth after a clean break by Brian O'Driscoll, who limped off before the end to give Eoin Reddan his debut, they were looking for reinforcements. The problem was the troops had already arrived and weren't making much of an impression.

So the gap was down to 12 points and the game well and truly broken up. Indeed it was unrecognisable as standard Test match rugby. The only thing you knew for certain was that Ireland would counter each restart from deep. For 50 minutes they had been running down blind alleys and getting beaten up. Now they were untouchable. They suffered at the hands of referee Paul Honiss in that frantic endgame when France were prepared to do anything to avoid conceding another try. You knew that if Ireland could squeeze one more score out of it then another would surely follow if time would allow. We never got that far in the story, but the journey to that point was memorable.

Its start was mortifying for Ireland, and the only place Eddie O'Sullivan would have seen a picture like this was at the scariest point of his worst nightmare. Nowhere was the difference more pronounced than at the tackle. If your credo is that winning the collisions wins you the game, then France were making a down payment from the first whistle. They were enormously physical in contact, and from a host of big hits the one that stood out was an early thud on Tommy Bowe by Aurelien Rougerie. Bowe is not a small man but he was dumped so conclusively by his opposite number - no midget himself - that he seemed lightweight.

Bowe had a bad day but he wasn't alone. Malcolm O'Kelly was a passenger, and it was a surprise O'Sullivan left him on for so long. By the time he was dumped Ireland were still all over the place. They turned over 29-3 at half time, their worst 40 minutes since being blitzed by the same opposition in Melbourne in 2003. It started with Rougerie's try after only three minutes, facilitated by Bowe slipping, and then compounded by Geordan Murphy missing the tackle. He too was having an horrendous game, but survived to make a good contribution to the revival.

First, though, there was the pain. By 18 minutes France were out to 19 points, and only then did Ireland get a look-in. Their scrum - shunted off the ball at first - was recovering, but despite lots of good approach work all they had from a sustained period of possession was an O'Gara penalty. And even from the restart off that score France were in again - this time just for a penalty, but it reinforced the theme.

The third quarter was every bit as miserable for Ireland, starting with a try for Cedric Heymans after Rougerie had helpfully run over the top of O'Gara. David Marty put them over the 40 mark soon after, and the Irish supporters didn't know where to look. Well, after that comeback they will have had no problem making eye contact.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, we've never seen anything like this. And we're not likely to witness its likes again.

Man of the match - OLIVIER MAGNE It is to his credit that he was off the field during Ireland's remarkable comeback, but the man now plying his trade with London Irish had caused his new mates no end of grief with his tackling, clearing out and support play as France racked up their 43-3 lead. His try was particularly painful to Ireland at the time.

Brendan Fanning is rugby correspondent for the Sunday Independent

Stade de France 79,939

FRANCE Dominici; Rougerie, Fritz, Marty, Heymans; Michalak (Boyet 69), Elissalde (Yachvili 59); Milloud (Marconnet 59), Ibanez (Bruno 47), De Villiers, Pelous (capt), Thion, Nyanga (Nallet 71), Magne (Martin 59), Bonnaire Tries Rougerie, Magne, Marty (2), Heymans (2) Cons Elissalde (5) Pen Elissalde

IRELAND Murphy; Horgan, O'Driscoll (capt; Reddan 77), D'Arcy, Bowe (Trimble 62); O'Gara, Stringer; Corrigan (S Best 51), Flannery, Hayes, O'Kelly (O'Callaghan 51), O'Connell, Easterby, Wallace, Leamy Tries O'Gara, D'Arcy, O'Callaghan, Trimble Cons O'Gara (4) Pen O'Gara

Game rating iiiiiiiiii Referee P Honiss (New Zealand)

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