WHEN the Ireland team faces France at the Parc des Princes on Saturday, they will be renewing a rivalry first fashioned at Lansdowne Road on March 20th, 1909. In line with general expectation, Ireland won by 19 points to eight.

That first Ireland-France match was notable for the fact that it marked the end of the international careers of three great Irish players - Harry Thrift, later to leave a great impact at administrative level, J C Parke, a great all-round sportsman who among his distinctions won tennis titles at Wimbledon, and Fred Gardiner. Gardiner had announced his decision to retire before the game and marked his last appearance by scoring a try and converting it. Parke also scored a penalty and conversion. Thrift summed up the match as a "light hearted affair." Truly days of innocence.

Ireland made their initial visit to Paris the following season and played at Parc des Princes. But in fact that is not the stadium that now bears the same name and where Ireland will play on Saturday. The old site of the Parc des Princes was adjacent to the current ground a stadium where Ireland has not won since the French Federation moved there in 1973 from Stade Colombes, which became the home ground in 1921. Ireland's first match in France in 1910 was won, 8-3.

The following season France recorded their first international victory, beating Scotland 16-15, but there followed defeats to England Wales and Ireland, who won 25-5 in Cork.

Ireland's winning run continued as France found the going hard but by now they were in the championship, playing all four countries on an annual basis. But by the time international rugby was suspended by the outbreak of the World War in 1914, the only success

France had registered against major opposition was that win against Scotland.

A feature of Ireland's 24-0 victory in Cork in 1913 was that J P Quinn scored three tries. The match attracted an attendance of 8,000 and was played in the morning to enable spectators to go to the Cork Races in the afternoon.

When the championship was resumed in 1920, it was evident that France had improved considerably. After narrow defeats by Scotland, England and Wales, the great day for French rugby came at Lansdowne Road when for the first time they won a championship match away from home, beating Ireland 15-7 and scoring five tries, three in the opening 10 minutes - shades of happenings in later years.

That match was the last played for Ireland by the renowned Dickie Lloyd and marked the international debut of George Stephenson who went on to establish a world record of 42 caps, an astonishing achievement at that time and not broken until Jack Kyle did it in the 1950s.

France beat Ireland again in Paris in 1921, and did so also in 1923 but Ireland won the next six matches until defeated for the fourth time by France 5-0 at Ravenhill in 1930. By that time they had also recorded wins over England and Wales and had truly arrived as a force to be reckoned with. But after competing in the 1931 championship in which they defeated both Ireland and England, they were suspended from the series. There were internal problems in France with 10 of their leading clubs breaking from the French Federation. Those events and persistent suggestions of professionalism saw France dismissed and they did not return until after the World War of 1939-45.

It was in the post-war period that France really became a match for any opposition. They played Ireland in an unofficial match in 1946 and won 4-3 in Dublin. That afternoon they fielded two huge second row forwards, Soro and Moga, who were rated the biggest second-row pair to play international rugby up to that time. They also had a flanker, Jean Prat, who emerged as one of the greatest rugby players produced by any country.

On their return to the championship in 1947, France beat Ireland 12-8 in Dublin in 1947 but Ireland won 13-6 in Paris on New Year's Day 1948 and went on that season to bring off the Grand Slam. But it was France who deprived Ireland of achieving a second Grand Slam in 1949, when Ireland won the triple Crown and championship again before the French emerged with a 16-9 victory in Dublin.

The first drawn encounter between the sides was in 1950, 3-3 in Paris, and then Ireland won three times in a row including an 11-8 victory in Paris in 1952. But in fact Ireland did not again win in Paris until 1972. The score was 14-9 and that was the last match Ireland played in Stade Colombes as France moved home to the new Parc des Princes, from where incidentally they are now moving again to a new stadium.

France achieved their great ambition of bringing off the grand slam for the first time in 1968. They have done it three times subsequently, the most recent being in 1987. They won the championship for the first time in 1959. That season their last match was in Dublin in mid-April and Ireland won it 9-5.

That game harked the international debuts of Kevin Flynn and Niall Brophy, now vice-president of the IRFU, scored a try, David Hewitt kicked a penalty and Mick English dropped a goal. Ironically Flynn also featured in Ireland's last win Paris in 1972 when he was recalled to the side after six years' absence.

France have been very much the dominant side in recent years. Ireland's last win against the French was attained in Dublin in 1983, with a draw two years later the best result in the interim.

The French have won 11 in a row against Ireland, including the most recent meeting in the World Cup in Durban in June. That is the longest winning sequence by either country in the ongoing rivalry between the sides. Ireland's task on Saturday is to end the long, barren spell in what will be their last match at Parc des Princes.