THE BAD:IN PARIS, the home side cleverly targeted the Irish midfield and Brian O'Driscoll in particular to take him out of the equation before going wide off third or fourth phase. In the build-up to the second try, Mathieu Bastareaud sauntered through a large gap between Gordon D'Arcy and O'Driscoll off a scrum, and a couple of recycles later a full French backline is found running at green jerseys numbering seven, one, six, three, 12, two and 14, with Jerry Flannery over-shooting at outside centre.
Rarely has an Irish defence been dragged out of shape as the French did that day.
“They did,” admits Kiss, “and they did it smart.”
THE GOOD:PREVIOUS STELLAR defensive efforts have often been punctuated by turnover hits by "shooters", but against England it was more about keeping their shape. "We had some little moments, like Fez (Stephen Ferris) was brilliant in some of those one-on-one hits, and Cian (Healy) and (Keith) Earls chasing that little ball on the ground, forcing a turnover (which led to Tommy Bowe's opening try).
“They weren’t the traditional line speed shooters/edges coming up, but variations in how we tried to apply the pressure. It’s not like we took the foot off the pedal, but we just made sure we were together on our thinking instead of narrowing it.”
