‘Scrutiny and pressure on Irish has reached new level’

The warning shot came early.

With the home fans inside the Stade de France already buzzing from a spectacular pre-match light show and a typically spine-tingling rendition of La Marseillaise, it only took Les Bleus two minutes to show Ireland what they were up against.

For the Parisian crowd, it was instantly edge-of-the-seat stuff. Dynamite winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey collected the ball on the left wing. He chipped the ball over Sam Prendergast’s head and set off after it.

It’s a tried-and-tested move from the Bordeaux flyer that usually ends with him scoring a try. Only this time it didn’t.

With Bielle-Biarrey having sent Ireland nervously scurrying back towards their line, Charles Ollivon knocked the ball on and let the men in green off the hook.

But even having survived that scare, Ireland could not stem the rising French tide.

For most of the next two hours, green jerseys were mercilessly pulled all over the place as France dished out another bruising lesson on the biggest stage, 11 months on from their rampant 42-27 win in Dublin.

France scored five tries to win 36-14, but it could have been even uglier for Ireland had they not summoned what head coach Andy Farrell called a “gallant” second-half display.

In contrast, Ireland’s confidence looked shot to pieces and they were again found wanting against one of the sides against whom they like to measure themselves.

Last year, France tore Ireland to shreds in the second half, scoring 34 unanswered points in a stunning response to losing Antoine Dupont to injury.

In Chicago in November, the All Blacks ran away from Ireland with three tries in 15 second-half minutes, before Farrell’s side were brutally overpowered by scrum-masters South Africa.

With questions over Ireland’s direction intensifying after that autumn campaign, Farrell is facing one of the most daunting challenges of his six-year reign.

For former Ireland full-back Rob Kearney, the current situation is the first time this Irish group has felt “real pressure” to turn things around.

“I was less concerned about the performances in November,” Kearney said on the Ireland Rugby Social.

“Guys were not very battle-hardened. They were coming off that long tour, they hadn’t played a huge amount of rugby. They went to Chicago, half the team hadn’t played 100 minutes [in the season].

“We lost that game but it was in the balance for 60 minutes. Then you come against South Africa, who are playing a different game to any other team in the world at the moment, so I had given them a little bit of a pass.”

He added: “But in truth, if you go back to September and looked at our fixtures, you would have said ‘OK, there is a very good chance we’re going to lose to New Zealand, South Africa, France and then we go away to Twickenham and there’s a good chance we lose there too’.

While Farrell was in no mood to make post-match excuses in Paris, Kearney feels the lingering effects of the Lions tour last summer for which Ireland supplied a record 18 players may explain the tortured attempts to hit top form.

Indeed, several of the players that toured Australia – including first-choice props Tadhg Furlong and Andrew Porter and key backs Mack Hansen and Hugo Keenan – are currently sidelined.

“I definitely felt it after the two Lions tours I was on,” said Kearney, who was part of the 2009 and 2013 series.

“They’re long seasons, the bodies start to break down. You go for 12 months, you get four weeks off and then all of a sudden you’re back into this again.

“If you look at our team at the moment, we have some world-class players, but none of them are playing to the level of a world-class player.

“Is there anyone really on that Irish team that are at the peak of their powers? I don’t think so.”

While a lot of Ireland’s players struggled in Paris, Kearney felt fly-half Sam Prendergast performed well after being picked from the start ahead of Jack Crowley.

“I thought Sam played pretty well. Defended well. He kicked pretty well, there were a couple of Garryowens that went long and there was definitely one down the left-hand touchline when he tried a little grubber and he’d have been better going long.

With several players missing, Farrell is under pressure to breathe new life into his side 18 months out from the Rugby World Cup in Australia.

The road to redemption starts against Italy next week, but even if Farrell is tempted to shake things up, his extensive injury list and lack of a France-strength player pool to dip into makes wholesale changes for the Azzurri’s visit to Dublin seem unlikely.

“Italy will smell blood, they’ll see a bit of weakness there,” added Kearney, who won Grand Slams with Ireland in 2009 and 2018.