Ireland v France – Coming up….

With tails between legs after an unconvincing win over Italy and less than inspiring World Cup, Ireland must step into the Stade de France today and become the team they once were… Ireland’s rugby sanity depends upon it…

France looked superb last week against Scotland, with perfect manoeuvres, but as underdogs (a position Ireland fans understand and remember well), could this be in there favour?

If Ireland come out and play as a team with a degree of unity today, the French could back-pedaled enough to be beaten. Easterby and Best are dropped from the starting XV with Heaslip and Jackman stepping in – they both have their critics, but is this the day to prove them all wrong.

Kearney has a fantastic kicking boot on the wing and could give Ireland an edge today, as a useful addition to O’Gara’s talents.

The scrum and the lineout must be won today – no question there, the lineout hasn’t fired properly for some time. This needs to be a game with drive, from all the positions, we need a spark from O’Driscoll….. And if all this doesn’t happen? Well it could be the hiding in France that we’ve dreaded!

O’Driscoll has a game plan – but can they stick to it?

“It’s a new-looking French side, I suppose it’s exciting for everyone except their opposition. It’s going to be another monumental challenge. We’ve struggled the last three or four occasions playing France at Stade de France,”

“We’ve to go out with the same attitude, to stop their momentum in the first 20 minutes or half-an-hour, dig our heels in and try and implement our own game plan. It’s a tough job in itself but that’s the way to go about beating them.”

Tags: France, Ireland, ODriscoll, Six Nations
February 9th, 2008 | Posted in Six Nations | 1 Comment »