Irish inhibitions lost in France

It's not often when a yearly review of Irish rugby prompts a feeling of excitement as the video is inserted yet again. But 2000, circa March 19th to be precise, is a rare case in point. It was an uplifting year anyway, but you could trawl through a decade for as enervating a sports occasion as that famous day in the Stade de France.

The pain heightened the pleasure. After 28 years of hurt in Paris, Ireland's 27-25 win was all the more enjoyable. Sure Ireland had come within a whisker two years previously when given little chance. Sure the French were depleted. Yet you could not dare to believe this was to be the day. And little in the opening quarter suggested it would be. The match began in a tidal wave of blue, that old thorn in Irish sides, Philippe Bernat-Salles, making weaving inroads from his first touch. For 20 minutes Ireland were making desperate tackles. Yet, whereas Irish sides of the past would have buckled, this time they hung in to trail 6-0 to two penalties from the otherwise uncomfortable French outhalf Gerald Merceron.

Another reason the game stands up to repeated video reviewing is that Brian O'Driscoll's performance is scarcely any less believable now. It was a great performance, a fitting demonstration of all-round midfield excellence in the land where the conveyor belt of centres is the equal of anywhere else in the world. After all it was O'Driscoll and his trusty and equally pacey sidekick Denis Hickie who had saved breakthrough tries for the French. It was O'Driscoll's follow-up hit on Bernat-Salles, leaving the Irishman himself groggy, which lifted the siege and Irish spirits. And it was O'Driscoll's break off O'Gara's skip-pass which gave the first hint of Ireland's cutting edge.

All of this contributed to sewing the first seeds of doubt in French minds and his first try, after 23 minutes, encouraged all those around him. O'Driscoll ma de another break off O'Gara's next skip-pass from scrum ball and, three phases later, stealthily scored from Malcolm O'Kelly's deft skip-pass.

Although it still needed Denis Hickie's stunning tackle and O'Driscoll's covering to deny Marc dal Maso, even at 19-7 down 15 minutes into the second half, you sensed Ireland were very much in it. Paddy Johns and Andy Ward were especially influential following their arrival at that point.

Immediately it was Johns who, crucially, won O'Gara's well-flighted restart and Hickie who twice set Ireland alight, first with a cross-field run and reverse pass to the supporting Rob Henderson and then weaving up the middle. O'Driscoll's typically cutting line of running on to Henderson's break and pass inside to score kept hopes alive.

Johns' sin-binning briefly had the Irish press corps flailing their arms defeatedly, but it was the making of the men in green that day. After Merceron's penalty for Johns' fringing at a ruck under the posts, Ireland drew the ensuing 10 minutes 3-3, Anthony Foley slipping into the secondrow for an almighty seven-man shove.

Hickie, too, was still on fire moving into the last 10 minutes. His penetrating, arcing run from deep was supported by the increasingly influential Ward and Johns. He was minced, and Stringer's feed was disrupted as the ball went to ground amid a hint of a forward roll. Everybody seemed to be frozen in motion. Except yer man O'Driscoll, who pounced, speeding through a yawning gap and around Emile Ntamack, who famously didn't even raise a hand.

Somehow you sensed there was an irresistible force with Ireland now and the perfect, poetic justice of it all was that David Humphreys, having missed the chance to nail the match-winning kick against France a year before, should bisect the posts with the ensuing, redemptive, decisive 45-metre penalty. Hats off to Humphreys too.

Cue the outpouring of emotion, Trevor Brennan lifting an "embarrassed" O'Driscoll shoulder-high, while the video shows that out of synch Mexican wave from the Irish management on the fulltime whistle and that utterly joyous Irish supporter looking to the gods almost in disbelief. The on-pitch interviews produced Keith Wood's memorable bout of Franglais: "Je suis fatigue, but woohoo." O'Driscoll announced he was proud to be Irish, and back home the nation was pretty chuffed about him being Irish too. In the media scrum outside the visitors' dressing-room, O'Driscoll wearily reeled back against a wall. Modesty forbade him from taking too much credit as he drew attention to the team effort. There were plenty of other outstanding performances, notably Hickie, Henderson and Clohessy. The back row was also outstanding, somehow remaining positive despite spending much of the afternoon on the back foot, which reminded you how unlucky Ireland are to have lost both Simon Easterby and Kieron Dawson for the forthcoming championship. Even the three replacements had big impacts. It was an 18-man effort, not forgetting the management.

Ireland went into an unprecedented frenzy afterwards and a star was born, O'Driscoll's famous triangular-shaped signal home being the subject of front-page speculation. The thought occurred that he'll always have Paris, and though in some respects he'll do well to scale those heights again, there'll be more where that came from.

You wouldn't think another day could rival that, but along came Munster on that equally enervating, humid May 6th in Bordeaux when they rode out the Toulouse storm and won their European Cup semifinal 31-25. Again they defended titanically, again they rolled up their sleeves for 10 vital minutes while Mike Mullins was sin-binned (no-one more so than the outstanding David Wallace), and again they outscored their French opponents by three tries to one, the pick of them being that match-winning, 91 seconds of high tempo continuity, travelling through 16 pairs of hands before Ronan O'Gara somersaulted under the posts. Take that.

"You dream of days like today," admitted Declan Kidney. The gods didn't shine on them three weeks later, torrential end-of-May rain suiting Northampton in a heart-breaking one-point defeat, but Munster and the travelling hordes could hold their heads high. You sense they might be back.

Some great days anyway, and the truly sporting nature in which the French took both defeats also had to be experienced to be believed. All in all the year 2000, highlighted by Paris and Bordeaux, was an exceptional vintage.