France head coach Fabien Galthie on Thursday lauded his team’s attacking performance after their dazzling 36-14 victory over Ireland in their Six Nations opener.
A brace of tries from Louis Bielley-Biarrey and one from mercurial flyhalf Matthieu Jalibert helped France storm into a 29-0 lead before taking their foot off the gas and allowing Ireland back into the match, before winger Theo Attissogbe put some gloss on the victory late on.
“In an attacking sense, with the ball, the team played with great accuracy,” Galthie said. “It was one of the most accurate attacking performances in a long time, despite the weather conditions. The variety between kicking and keeping the ball in hand was remarkable.”
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Playing together for only the second time since the 2023 Rugby World Cup, halfbacks Antoine Dupont and Jalibert made light of the rain to continuously probe Ireland for weaknesses.
Both helped create a try with a deft chip over Ireland’s rush defense.
“We switched well between our forwards and the backs,” said captain and scrumhalf Dupont, who was making his first appearance for France in 11 months following a cruciate knee ligament injury. “Despite the conditions, we managed to be accurate technically, and passed the ball and worked it wide. It’s largely positive, even though we had that little lull that we need to work on.”
Overall, he said that it was “a good sign of what’s to come.”
With the game all but won on 50 minutes with France leading 29-0 — lock Charles Ollivon had also scored — Galthie changed five forwards in one fell swoop and France started to lose their way.
Replacement forwards Nick Timoney and Michael Milne both crossed to raise concerns amongst the home fans that Ireland could rumble up a head of steam and make a fist of things, but France steadied the ship and Attissogbe’s try clinched a commanding victory.
“We were playing Ireland, after all,” Galthie said.
Ireland began the day ranked fourth in the world, one place above France.
“You have to be humble at this level, you have to accept that you’ll make mistakes,” Galthie said. “We made some mistakes, but not many compared to the things that came off.”
Ireland coach Andy Farrell was scathing about his team and their passive start to the game.
“There’s a lot going through our minds at this moment in time,” he said.
“We’re very disappointed, through something I never thought I’d say about this Ireland team: a lack of intensity in the first half,” Farrell told ITV. “Missed tackles, missing the scraps on the ground and the ball in the air. It’s just intention and if that is lacking, you are not going to win any international game, never mind one in Paris.”
Although he was pleased with Ireland’s second-half fightback, Farrell said that was not what he expected from them.
“You make your own luck in things like the high balls and winning the scraps on the floor and running, obviously, through tackles and ourselves missing tackles,” he told reporters. “We certainly came off second best in that regard in the first half. A response to that in the second half, and a gallant response, but it’s not what we want to be here: a responding team to something that we need to show up with from the get-go.”
“We left ourselves too tall a mountain to climb in the first half. We were too passive defensively,” Ireland captain Caelan Doris told ITV. “It’s a very disappointing way to start the campaign.”
France travel to Wales on Feb. 15 in the second round of the tournament, while Ireland host Italy next weekend.
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