Several French media outlets, including Midi Olympique, are running a story in which a video grab appears to capture Ireland secondrow James Ryan confiding in team-mate Caelan Doris that he may have broken his hand during the Rugby World Cup Pool B victory over Scotland at the Stade de France.
Ryan was a second-half replacement and did receive treatment at the time. Ireland head coach Andy Farrell explained when asked about the injury after the game. “James Ryan took a blow to his wrist; he will need to be assessed too.”
Midi Olympique reported: “At the final whistle, when the team was going to celebrate with the thousands of Irish supporters present once again at the Stade de France, the one [Ryan] who was already on the bench for “wrist discomfort” according to his coach, seems to confide, with a closed face, a big concern to his team-mates about his right hand: “I think I broke my hand,” he seems to say to Caelan Doris, the Irish number 8, irresistible on Saturday evening.”
‘Imperious Irish crush Scots to reach the quarter-finals’ was the rather prosaic headline but one of Limerick’s finest, Tom English, writing for BBC Scotland, was more eloquent in his synopsis of events at the Stade de France on Saturday night: “This was a 17th straight victory for Ireland, a run that’s beginning to look inexorable.
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“They have seen them all off – the All Blacks, the Springboks, the French, the English and now the Scots, trampled mercilessly underfoot.
“For all Scotland’s big talk, this was a cruel rout, a systematic Irish dismantling and humiliation of a side who came here looking for an eight-point win that went from improbable to virtually impossible after a single minute.
“Ireland were ruthless. They showed power, imagination, clarity, accuracy, belief and a clinical edge. Glorious to witness if you were one of the millions – or maybe it just sounded like there were millions – in green at the Stade and just about the most embarrassing experience any Scotland fan has endured in an age.”
The Scotsman newspaper ran the headline ‘Scotland’s Rugby World Cup hopes shredded by ruthless Ireland on a painful night in Paris’, the copy a keening lament for hopes dashed by a green machine.
Alasdair Mackenzie writing in the Herald referenced Scotland coach Gregor Townsend’s warning that Ireland could go on to dominate “world rugby for the next five to 10 years.”
Townsend explained: “The way Irish rugby is set up, they could dominate world rugby for the next five to 10 years, because they are the number one team in the world and they have a pro rugby system which is very strong, and they’ve got an age group system that is very strong, so that should continue for them.
“We’ve got to do better. This group of players have got to fifth in the world, which is the best place we’ve ever been in terms of the Scotland national team, but we have to make sure that continues, not for the next couple of years but the next 10 years.”
Jack Herrall in the Daily Record wrote: “It’s hard to understate just how massive this game was for Scotland. Arguably the biggest game of the Gregor Townsend era and it was soon a walkover against them as Ireland raced into a 26-0 half-time lead.
“They crash out of the Rugby World Cup yet again, albeit against an Ireland side that may never have a better chance to go on and win it. For Scotland, it will be time to reassess and watch the rest of it on the couch despite a valiant second-half fightback.”
Midi Olympique were high in their praise but one statistic that they offered which was interesting to note was that the game attracted an average television audience of 4.9 million French people, the highest ever viewing figures outside a French match. The game had a peak of six million viewers, a whopping 26.6 per cent of the audience share.
