molman
Jim Lenehan (48)
Ireland needed to convert all that early pressure and territory into points. They looked good in that openning stanza and had every opportunity, but for all their efforts France's defence held. Doris really needed to ground that early ball. You could see by the 50-60min mark how many of the Irish players were starting to look fatigued, they'd expended all this effort and racked up so few points. They started to slow and France started to find a bit of space and some of their individual talent really took advantage.Think I should watch this game definitely did not tip that result
I felt with the Irish attack that they really missed players like Lowe and even Hansen (at his best) acting as a second pivot to unlock something. They look a little too predictable with Prendagast running the show (who I'm still undersold on outside his goal kicking). You could see the French players being able to pick him out and they even got an intercept on one of his shovels. Players like Osborne out wide also just didn't offer enough. He got himself caught out too many times without much to show for it.
Anyway, congrats France, well played and well deserved. I was happy to see some pride from the Irish at the end in trying to close the gap on the scoreboard, but really not good enough.