British & Irish Lions
• British & Irish Lions tour Australia in 2013
Ireland Rugby
Gutted – simply Gutted! ‘Le Crunch’
Vincent Clerc broke the hearts of a capacity crowd at Croke Park today, gathering pace for a French Grand Slam on on the way, and building up nicely to the Rugby World Cup!
The best of game of the weekend left the entire pub we were in gasping for breath at times.
Even after O’Gara lit Croker up with a penalty with four minutes to go, Clerc broke through some useless tackles to rip the rug from under Irelands feet.
It might have been a World Cup final out there today! It was billed as the Six Nations Final in just week two, and Ireland were billed as being on form enough to take it.
The whole country waited with baited breath as rugby, the English game, was played at Croke Park, the Gaelic Games temple!
With just 14 minutes gone the French scored a try and converted to take it to 13-3. They were held back for 65 minutes of rugby not able to score, but then they did – and it counted….
With 23 minutes to go Ireland were one point up, and clinging onto it, we all knew a kicking game was on the cards now!
Beauxis kicked a drop which bounded off an upright, a reprieve!
France brought down a fantastic Irish maul, and O’Gara kicked, 17-14 with two minutes to play.
At the restart France won the ball back David Marty accelerated ahead into the Irish 22 and Yannick Jauzion carried it on. They won quick ball from the tackle and Pierre Mignoni fed Beauxis who threw a long pass to his left – to Vincent Clerc in a centre position. The wing darted between John Hayes and Neil Best, swerving past groping Denis Hickie and away from stretching Paul O’Connell to score as Shane Horgan approached, horror on his face.
Horror on the face of thousands… Too late with just a few seconds on the restart.
Noise was the feature of the day with Landsdowne Road’s unique manners out of the window, not even a French kick at goal could produce silence from this crowd. The pockets of French in the crowd loved every second, and so they should – they played unbelievable rugby, and punished every mistake Ireland made!
O’Gara was man of the match, and so he should be. Scoring every Irish point wasn’t enough, he started and scored the Irish try!
In Week 1 of the 2007 Six Nations the best match was saved for last. It was true of the Week 2 as well. Maybe it was playing on Sunday that did it. Perhaps the organisers should think of having all Six Nations matches on Sundays, or may be it’s just the way Ireland light up the screen!
I for one, had to turn and shake the hand of the French man beside me!