Eddie Jones hailed France’s performance in their Six Nations opener against Ireland but highlighted where they looked ordinary.
Fabien Galthie’s charges powered to a 36-14 victory at the Stade de France in Paris, running in five tries to Ireland’s two with Les Bleus dominating the first half of the encounter.
France’s performance was centred around their aerial dominance, set-piece accuracy and ability to dominate the gain-line, allowing for quick attacking ball which Ireland simply couldn’t handle.
While Galthie’s men emphatically dispatched Ireland in their first Six Nations Test of the year, Jones believes that they were still rather ordinary at times in the game, particularly with Andy Farrell’s men grabbing two consolation scores in the final quarter.
Where France were ordinary
He said as much when providing his immediate reaction to the clash on the Rugby Unity podcast, where he was joined by fellow ex-Wallabies head coach Ewan McKenzie.
“Three things to come out of the game for me,” Jones began.
“Again, the influence of the contestable kicks, it seemed like in the first half, France won all the crumbs from contestable kicks and therefore had the flow of the game and were able to score a considerable number of points.
“Second thing, up until the last 10 minutes, it was almost a joy to watch with little TMO at the end. We had a little bit more TMO, and I thought the game flowed really well. There was a nice rhythm to the game.
“And the third was France, when they’re able to get any sort of momentum, they really played some beautiful rugby with their ability to keep the ball moving, their support lines, their offloading in the tackle, it was really good rugby to watch.”
However, it was when France weren’t able to dominate the gain-line and the aerial battle that Jones saw a weak point, adding: “Conversely, when they weren’t able to do that, they looked pretty ordinary.”
Ireland’s struggles and lack of officials’ influence
McKenzie agreed with Jones’ three talking points from the encounter and added that Ireland lacked answers to what France were throwing at them and were predictable when they did have possession.
He also praised France’s attacking prowess and highlighted subtle tweaks in their set-phase attack from the lineouts.
“My thoughts are similar to Eddie’s; I was actually impressed by the lack of influence the referees were having in the game until it got a bit messy in the last 15 minutes,” he said.
“France’s ability to straighten the attack and to use just hands, across the board, means they’re able to play very straight and use every person to be able to create the overlap and give their wingers some space, and their wingers profited from that.
“More tactically interesting, I was looking for things that were different from maybe last year, and France played their forwards much wider off their short lineouts.
“Mickael Guillard, their number five, was outstanding in terms of ball carries, but that third try, they had a second rower passing to the second rower out wide, that was off broken play, but they played their forwards much wider off short lineouts and then played back from that.
“So that was subtly different in terms of tactical approach; most teams play their forwards a bit closer to the lineout.”
The former prop believes that Ireland turned to ‘spoiling’ tactics as the game progressed and added that France relinquished control of the match in the second half as their replacements weren’t able to replicate the starters’ dominance.
“Generally speaking, France were good when they had the ball, they won all the aerial contests, and Ireland got back into the game a little bit,” McKenzie continued.
“Ireland looked a bit predictable, to be honest; they didn’t have a lot of ways to score except for just playing very directly. And, in the end, they were just reverting to trying to be spoilers at the back of rucks and things like that.
“So there wasn’t much going on. France scored a good try from wheeling the scrum; nothing revolutionary there, but they used a good scrum tactic, wheeled the scrum scored on the short side, so France were pretty good all round.
“They just had 30 minutes off in the second half when they put their replacements on; they just seemed to lose momentum.”
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