{"id":295671,"date":"2026-02-13T08:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295671\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T08:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:16:10","slug":"irelands-social-contract-with-fans-was-broken-after-defeat-to-france-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295671\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s social contract with fans was broken after defeat to France \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday the former Wales<\/a> outhalf Dan Biggar<\/a> saw Ireland\u2019s<\/a> problems through the prism of Wales\u2019 problems. He had a smile on his face. Irish headaches were relative.<\/p>\n

Ireland were still afloat while the Wales ship was on the rocks.<\/p>\n

There were issues against France<\/a>, he said, but the Irish system was intact. Ireland can have some hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m more than happy if you Irish guys want to come and swap places with us,\u201d said Biggar. \u201cFrom an outsider\u2019s point of view it feels as if everything is much more aligned in Ireland in terms of the union to the provinces, to the colleges, to the school system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biggar also defended Sam Prendergast<\/a>. He said Andy Farrell<\/a> could have partnered Peter Stringer<\/a> or Jamison Gibson-Park<\/a> with Ronan O\u2019Gara<\/a> or Johnny Sexton<\/a> and they would not have got much change out of France.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Gara looked at Ireland\u2019s performance through the spectacles of his position of La Rochelle coach and not from the emotional viewpoint of a former player. He highlighted issues<\/a> Farrell would have to straighten out being like those he faced in France with his own side \u2013 the similarities with an Irish team that was successful and suddenly forced to face hard truths and changing fortunes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in a good position to comment on this because I\u2019ve been living this for a longer number of months than the Ireland management have,\u201d said O\u2019Gara. \u201cThis is exactly what happens when you\u2019ve had success and you lose it … you lose confidence and it spirals out of control. It\u2019s like the sea and you\u2019re trying to turn the tide.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday the players rolled into a press conference after training. Some clammed up, slid their bodies down the chair and legs under the table and reached for the safe spaces of cliches and learned responses.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland rugby fans are too cynical to emulate raucous Paris atmosphereOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Not Jack Conan<\/a>. Throwing his arms back in a physically open gesture, he was chatty and responsive. He said the France game was an aberration, a one-off bad performance. He was certain about that. He spoke about individual ownership and collective responsibility. <\/p>\n

Joe McCarthy<\/a> was in a sombre mood, his bulk making the top table seem like an infant\u2019s school desk. <\/p>\n

He was asked about intent, or the lack of it. He used words like sloppy, said the team was now \u201csuper hungry\u201d but shed little light on what went wrong in Paris. <\/p>\n

The penalty he gave away in a match where he had two carries was \u201cpoor judgment\u201d and \u201cdefinitely avoidable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get a big enough loss like that, you definitely haven\u2019t done a few things right, so it was a tough pill to swallow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bryn Ward was wonderfully wide-eyed, someone who clearly felt the sporting gods had been good to him of late. <\/p>\n

Ward was a success story, a good news event, as a 21-year-old who had not been mapped at the beginning of the season, but was now pulled to the bosom of Irish management. <\/p>\n

\"BrynBryn Ward. Photograph: Ben Brady\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Likable and articulate, Ward was a distraction and an innocent in many ways. He hadn\u2019t played against France and wouldn\u2019t be involved against Italy. He was there to draw eyes away from the constant thrum of negativity, to deflect from the Irish performance and spin out a positive, breakthrough narrative.<\/p>\n

Management also coloured within the lines. Scrum coach John Fogarty was garrulous but defensive. <\/p>\n

His words were chosen carefully. Regret and disappointment, sure, but omerta too. Yet it was an innocent remark from Fogarty that probably said most.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said it at half-time [against France] that we have [to show] character, that we [have to] represent where we\u2019re from properly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Uncharacteristically, Ireland didn\u2019t represent where they are from properly, and that\u2019s the sting. That social contract the Irish team had with their fans was sundered. <\/p>\n

The agreed understanding between stakeholders and team involved those things the players said they lacked: conviction, intensity and intent. Those defining qualities of this Irish team were missing. Solemn commitments were broken.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Conor Murray: Here\u2019s why the obituaries for Irish rugby are prematureOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

And that triggered outrage in an era where fans have moved from the traditional position of cheerleaders to critics and opinion writers, where their voice and views reach into people\u2019s homes and team hotels. <\/p>\n

Filter free, they opined that such and such a player is a coward, that the other a fraud. There\u2019s the forward who can\u2019t catch, and the back who can\u2019t run \u2013 ad hominem attacks.<\/p>\n

When people put their trust and ambitions into something larger than they are \u2013 such as an Irish team \u2013 the fall is hard.<\/p>\n

A fuming Farrell after the match suggested he knew a line was crossed. The hope is that of all the voices heard this week, Conan\u2019s certainty was on the mark and that the character of this Irish team won\u2019t fail again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday the former Wales outhalf Dan Biggar saw Ireland\u2019s problems through the prism of Wales\u2019 problems. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25747,140759,1452,61,60,1449,83014,21457,3654,12918,15551,112,92456],"class_list":{"0":"post-295671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-andy-farrell","9":"tag-dan-biggar","10":"tag-france-rugby","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-ireland-rugby","14":"tag-jack-conan","15":"tag-joe-mccarthy","16":"tag-rugby","17":"tag-sam-prendergast","18":"tag-six-nations","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-wales-rugby"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}