As some of you may have heard, I got drawn into making an on-air bet with Colm during the week - breaking the habit of a lifetime in the process. I’ll admit that the sheer largesse of the gamble (a whopping €50 that Ireland will beat France) had given me some cause for doubting my decision...until I went back and watched France in action.
Having reviewed all of their games so-far in the pool stages, I can find no real reason for Ireland to fear Sunday's game against a French side that has flattered to deceive. In their three matches in Pool D, France have beaten Italy (32-10), Romania (38-11) and Canada (41-18) and each of those scorelines would suggest comfortable victories.
In their opening win over Italy, France were able to profit against a woefully indisciplined Italian side that conceded 18 penalties, 13 of them inside their own half, and got on the wrong side of Craig Joubert at scrum time (more on that later).
A second-string French side struggled against the Romanian scrum and lineout and only managed to pull themselves clear in the final quarter after scoring two tries in quick succession - the first of which appeared to be a clear double movement by winger Sofiane Guitoune.
In their most recent win over Canada, they only led by six points with 58 minutes on the clock before scoring two tries in the last 13 minutes - the second of which was after Canada were down to 14 men.
Aerial Assault
"The one thing that we pride ourselves on is the ability to be big in the air and to dominate that area and it's certainly an area that, I think, as players and as coaches we have a real focus for. The French have lost Huget earlier on in the tournament, which is a blow to them, but they've certainly got some firepower out wide that can threaten us. We're pretty focused on, in the back three in particular, on trying to negate some of their aerial threats but also some of their threats on the floor."
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Simon Easterby on Wednesday
In case we were in any doubt, Simon Easterby's comments during the week are as clear an indication that you’re likely to get about how Ireland intend to approach Sunday's game. The selection of Dulin, who is a 5’8” full-back, on the left wing means that you can be certain he will see Tommy Bowe flying through the air at him early and often.
With the defensively naive Noa Nakaitaci on the other wing, Johnny Sexton and Conor Murray will look to test the aerial ability of the French wingers throughout the game. It's a weakness that has already been exploited by Canada in the lead-up to their second try last weekend.
Remy Grosso is the winger who is hopelessly off the pace for Nathan Hirayama’s restart while Wesley Fofana doesn’t cover himself in glory either. More importantly, however, is the fact that Canada had clearly shown their intention by placing two players out on the right wing, while Hirayama never looks as though he intends to send his restart in any other direction. France had time to prepare themselves, but didn't (or couldn't) and a few phases later DTH van der Merwe was crossing over in the left corner.
Brice Dulin, who was also on the wing for France that day, is forced to come in off his wing to tackle Matt Evans but the Canadian full-back is able to keep his hands free and pass to van der Merwe, who makes a bit of a mockery of both Freddie Michalak and Sebastien Tillouse-Borde before scoring.
It was a ruthlessly efficient piece of play from Canada, who identified a weakness from the restart and then kept hammering at the French line, which cracked open surprisingly quickly - from restart to touchdown takes about 50 seconds.
Perhaps it was just their defensive alignment against the weaker teams, but you can also see at the very start of the GIF above how narrowly France are defending. They rely on the speed of their outside backs to get across to cover the wide areas when necessary, as they tend to keep extra players around the fringes of the breakdown. No doubt, it’s an area that Joe Schmidt will hope to exploit.
Eddy Ben Arous
Simon Easterby didn’t mention it on Wednesday, but I would imagine that he, Greg Feek and the Irish front-row forwards will also be eager to speak with Nigel Owens about the scrummaging of Eddy Ben Arous ahead of Sunday’s match. The loosehead prop is a powerful ball carrier but his work at the set-piece is less impressive, and Mike Ross will be hoping to continue his impressive tournament so-far this Sunday.
Against Italy, Ben Arous found himself up against Martin Castrogiovanni and attempted to disrupt the Italian by using an illegal scrummaging angle.
The GIF below is in the first scrum of the match and Craig Joubert actually awards the penalty to France (penalising Castrogiovanni for not being able to keep his bind under pressure).
However, you can see clearly from the overhead camera angle that Ben Arous changes his angle from the moment that the front-rows are called to 'set' here:
To when the ball is just about to be delivered into the scrum, here:
It was a trend that was repeated right throughout the match as Castrogiovanni and Italy lost five of their scrums and France were able to turn the screw.
On this occasion, Joubert spots what Ben Arous is up to...
But he misses it here as the prop again tries to drive inwards and forces a reset. Seconds later, Joubert gets an instruction from his touch judge telling him to stand on the near side for the reset and he warns Ben Arous to keep his shoulders up.
Gamblers Logic
Perhaps I am just trying to convince myself that I'm going to be €50 richer at the end of this weekend, but I can see plenty of reasons why Ireland should win on Sunday. The areas where Ireland are strongest (scrum, lineout and kick-chase) are also areas of weakness for France.
Make no mistake, the French are a dangerous attacking side and with Freddie Michalak in their ranks, they are capable of moments of genius; his break for Wesley Fofana’s try against Canada and his grubber kick for Rabah Slimani to score under the posts against Italy are prime examples.
However, much of their play so-far has been predictable and their victories have been built on ill-discipline by their opponents.
Ireland to win and Wooly to lose!
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