Ireland make their own luck

In the dressing-room after the game, Warren Gatland approached David Wallace and good-naturedly warned him to never kick the ball away like he had done in that nerve-jangling finale. Wallace admitted he knew he'd messed up as soon as he'd done it. All part of the learning curve. If you don't make mistakes, you don't make progress.

Ireland deserved this massive, hard-earned win for being the more positive side over the 80 minutes, for adhering to a running game, and also for generally keeping their heads better and being notably more disciplined.

For sure, Peter Stringer and Ronan O'Gara pulled the strings deftly while Brian O'Driscoll was the ace in the hole, but it was always going to be as important that the pack fronted up and they assuredly did. The match statistics confirm Ireland's dominance of the leather and the territory.

This, after all, was a French pack that steamrollered both the All Blacks and the Scots up front in their last two outings. It helped that the set-pieces provided the platform. The scrum, apart from two exceptions, was rock solid and allayed the fears of many.

Afterwards, Peter Clohessy acknowledged the two aberrations. "We had our legs too far up underneath us. Scrummaging against a French team, you need to stay low and long."

Clohessy and the mighty Bull, John Hayes, rumbled and also putin the big hits, with Keith Wood getting through a mountain of work. His darts hit the bull's-eye regularly, and Ireland's two-to-one ratio in the lineout (where Malcolm O'Kelly reigned supreme, with Mick Galwey and Alan Quinlan providing assured alternatives) contributed significantly to the scoreboard. Just as significantly, the Irish pack didn't roll over for the French juggernaut.

A key moment in the match was the early double-hit by O'Kelly and Hayes when David Auradou came rumbling around the side of a ruck. As resolute as a brick wall, first they held them up and then Ireland drove France back to earn a penalty. In that moment Ireland drew a line in the sand. You wanna bosh it up close-in? Fine, we're not going anywhere.

From the ensuing field position Ireland went ahead and territorially dominated the game. A 9-3 interval lead was hard-earned to put it mildly. The French put in some ferocious tackles, and Irish ball carriers were forced to perform acrobatics in presenting the ball back.

With their heavy tackling and good organisation, France rarely had to commit too many men to rucks and so Ireland were regularly outnumbered across the pitch even when probing off good recycled ball. It is an enduring memory of the match, Irish ball carriers searching for near non-existent gaps amidst a thicket of blue. No-one succeeded better than O'Driscoll, whose ability to duck and weave through the most heavily guarded areas of the pitch, even off static ball, was single-handedly responsible for Ireland's field position and second O'Gara penalty to regain the lead.

He was a remarkably persistent threat, though as the match progressed, he got some notable assistance, most obviously from his able foil Rob Henderson and the increasingly influential Wallace, while the oft under-appreciated Anthony Foley was second in the ball-carrying stakes (with 13) behind O'Gara (27) and ahead of O'Driscoll (10).

On a good day at the office for the Irish management, a subtle change of tactics and a refocused energy had seen Ireland hit the ground running on the resumption. A brilliant lineout steal by O'Kelly and some pick-and-go rumbles from O'Kelly and Hayes were clearly the product of the Irish management's interval pep talk.

They also began probing the blind side more. France had done their homework and packed midfield but when Ireland began relocating the points of attack to pick and go up the middle or down the narrow side, half-gaps began to appear. With French hands indiscriminately loose on the deck at ruck time, O'Gara was also able to land two more penalties from three attempts and at 22-3 Ireland had produced as fine a third quarter as has been seen by the home side in a long, long time at the venue.

True, O'Driscoll didn't appear to ground the ball for his try, but them's the breaks. An incident leading up to the first French try was just as debatable. When O'Gara was obliged to step inside Christophe Lamaison and was collared by Olivier Magne, Lamaison was literally yards offside but this somehow went undetected. Were the touch judges communicating with Referee Scott Young regarding offsides across the gain line? It didn't seem so. From the ensuing scrum and close-range penalty, Richard Dourthe was mauled over the line. Had Lamaison been properly penalised, who knows how it might have panned out from there?

For all the inquisitions, the debate about the try that wasn't but was, Ireland and France each got what they deserved. Ireland the two points for playing the more positive, disciplined and controlled rugby over the 80-plus minutes, France zero points and food for thought because they didn't start playing until the final quarter. It served them right really.

No doubt the guillotine will drop. Dourthe and Magne, to name but two, surprisingly seemed relative soft touches in the wider midfield area whenever Henderson, Wallace and O'Driscoll (fittingly the incisor, link and poacher respectively of Ireland's try) went galloping.

Indeed, the French back row made a negligent impact but then that in part was down to their tactics.

Until beyond the hour mark France hardly set up any worthwhile forward momentum for their back row, concentrating (as we expected) on bashing away around the fringes or else kicking for territory.

They kicked far too much ball in the first half and only kept it in the hand when faced with a 22-3 deficit and impending defeat. It was as if they were fearfully locked in Bernard Laporte's straitjacket.

As Ireland showed when stemming the tide and plotting a course for victory in the denoument, the game is about keeping the ball in hand. Forget about the rub of the green. Fortune favoured the brave.

SCORING SEQUENCE: 5 mins: O'Gara pen, 3-0; 19 mins: Lamaison pen, 3-3; 29 mins: O'Gara pen, 6-3; 40 mins: O'Gara pen, 9-3; Half-time: 9-3; 44 mins: O'Gara pen 12-3; 51 mins: O'Driscoll try, O'Gara con, 19-3; 55 mins: O'Gara pen, 22-3; 62 mins: Pelous try, Lamaison con, 22-10; 72 mins: Bernat-Salles try 22-15.

IRELAND: G Dempsey (Terenure College and Leinster); D Hickie (St Mary's College and Leinster), B O'Driscoll (Blackrock and Leinster), R Henderson (Wasps), T Howe (Dungannon and Ulster); R O'Gara (Cork Con and Munster), P Stringer (Shannon and Munster); P Clohessy (Young Munster and Munster), K Wood (Harlequins, capt), J Hayes (Shannon and Munster); M Galwey (Shannon and Munster), M O'Kelly (St Mary's College and Leinster); A Quinlan (Shannon and Munster), A Foley (Shannon and Munster), D Wallace (Garryowen and Munster). Replacements: E Byrne (St Mary's College and Leinster) for Clohessy, G Longwell (Ballymena) for Galwey, A Ward (Ballynahinch) for Quinlan (all 73 mins), K Maggs (Bath) for Henderson (75 mins).

France: X Garbajosa (Toulouse); P Bernat-Salles (Biarritz), F Comba (Stade Francais), R Dourthe (Beziers), D Bory (Montferrand); C Lamaison (Agen), P Carbonneau (Pau); S Marconnet (Stade Francais), R Ibanez (Castres), P de Villiers (Stade Francais); D Auradou (Stade Francais), F Pelous (Toulouse, capt); C Moni (Stade Francais), C Juillet (Stade Francais), O Magne (Montferrand). Replacements: C Califano (Toulouse) for Marconnet (63 mins), A Benazzi (Agen) for Auradou (16-24 mins and 63 mins), S Betsen (Biarritz) for Moni (70 mins), C Dominici (Stade Francais) for Bory (70 mins).

Referee: Scott Young (Australia).