{"id":277017,"date":"2026-02-06T09:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T09:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/277017\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T09:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T09:45:07","slug":"frances-four-horsemen-bring-the-apocalypse-down-on-ireland-in-paris-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/277017\/","title":{"rendered":"France\u2019s four horsemen bring the apocalypse down on Ireland in Paris \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was earlier in the week that Gordon D\u2019Arcy wrote about the \u201capocalyptic\u201d narrative now surrounding this Irish team<\/a>, almost like if you\u2019re not shoo-ins for the Grand Slam you must be in the running for the Wooden Spoon. And there being nothing in between. <\/p>\n

You would, of course, have been hoping for a bit more buoyancy than that when coverage of our boys\u2019 trip to Paris kicked off, but after five-ish minutes you had a notion that horsemen Antoine Dupont, Matthieu Jalibert, Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Thomas Ramos were about to inflict nothing but pestilence, famine, war, death and the like on our Six Nations dreams. <\/p>\n

Conor Murray, making his Virgin Media debut, was a lonely voice. \u201cI\u2019m optimistic,\u201d he told Joe Molloy. \u201cSomeone\u2019s got to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s kind of where the hopefulness ended. <\/p>\n

Joe: \u201cI have yet to meet a single person who isn\u2019t in the brace position ahead of this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob Kearney: \u201cYou talk to people on the street and it\u2019s \u2018how much are we going to lose by?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Shane Horgan, in fairness to him, tried heroically to be upbeat: \u201cI refuse to lose optimism before a ball is kicked\u201d – but we were hardly another 10-ish minutes into the build-up when he ran out of reasons for why France would probably muller us. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we so scared tonight,\u201d Joe asked him. \u201cI don\u2019t want to add to your anxiety,\u201d said Shane, \u201cbut…\u201d.<\/p>\n

As buts go, this one was the size of the Burj Khalifa.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland'sIreland’s Caelan Doris passes to Jamison Gibson-Park as he is tackled by France’s Oscar Jegou. Photograph: Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cFrance have all the components for almost the perfect rugby team. They\u2019ve got a really strong pack, good set-piece, very strong scrum, great ball-carriers, and they\u2019re the fastest team in the world on the wings. They\u2019ve got a fullback who is a kicking machine, doesn\u2019t miss, and then you\u2019ve got the two link players who are borderline geniuses, Dupont and Jalibert.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe: \u201cAside from that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hats off to Virgin Media\u2019s defiant viewers, though. They were having none of this negativity. \u201cWho will win the Six Nations,\u201d asked the poll. They put Ireland second in the running, but the fact that they made Italy firm favourites, with 36 per cent of the vote, made you wonder if drink had been taken. <\/p>\n

Spare a thought for Wales, incidentally – they registered zero in the poll, not even Angharad from Aberystwyth nor Dai from Deganwy bothering to acquire a VPN so they could breathe even one per cent of fire into their dragons.<\/p>\n

The one small relief pre-match was Conor\u2019s highly absorbing insight to the Sam Prendergast v Jack Crowley debate, him having been in the room when Andy Farrell oft purred at Sam\u2019s take on the game and how he sees it. If anyone had any sense, they\u2019d give that man a column<\/a> in a newspaper.<\/p>\n

But it was largely gloom otherwise. \u201cIs anyone feeling more positive as kick-off approaches,\u201d asked Joe. Silence. Followed by a couple of \u201cehs\u201d. \u201cWhat\u2019s a good night for Ireland, then,\u201d he wondered. By now we were beginning to think: getting out alive. It was all bringing a whole new meaning to \u2018see Paris and die\u2019. <\/p>\n

Anthems. Ireland\u2019s Call 0, La Marseillaise 426.<\/p>\n

\"IrelandIreland stand for the national anthem before the Six Nations game in Paris. Photograph: Ben Brady <\/p>\n

Off we went. \u201cSpring has arrived,\u201d said Dave McIntyre. Wait \u2019til he gets home and discovers he needs a gondola to get to the shops for a loaf of bread.<\/p>\n

That first half? Well, okay, apocalyptic. ITV\u2019s first in-game ad, on 17 minutes, was actually quite a welcome distraction, at least your eyes were briefly averted from what Alan Quinlan called \u201ccarnage\u201d. By then France were doing their – technical jargon alert – flicky no-look passes and strutting about the place like cockerels. <\/p>\n

When we returned to Joe at the break, he had to clear his throat before conceding that \u201cit\u2019s turned out about as badly as we might have expected\u201d. He tried to temper that assessment by adding \u201cIreland haven\u2019t been terrible\u201d, which was a warm tribute to their efforts, but his panel were, on the whole, ashen-faced. \u201cIt\u2019s a scary place for Ireland to be,\u201d said Shane.<\/p>\n

But hold your horses and quivering lower lips right there. The second half was a scary place for France to be, Ireland drew it 14-14. Granted, that wasn\u2019t actually enough to triumph in the game, but less of your apocalypse natter, please, and tuck away your Wooden Spoon. They saw Paris and, yes, lost quite heavily, but they live to fight another day. Best of all, they never have to see Paris again in this year\u2019s Six Nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was earlier in the week that Gordon D\u2019Arcy wrote about the \u201capocalyptic\u201d narrative now surrounding this Irish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,122602,85,5429,46,141,112676,142984],"class_list":{"0":"post-277017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-france-rugby","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-ireland-rugby","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-six-nations","15":"tag-tv-view"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}