Louie Shortall (12) from Kinsale in Co Cork is the winner of Tap and Go, our competition to become a rugby writer for a day. Louie went to the match with his father Dave and reported from the press box, also attending the press conferences afterwards. Louie attends St Multose NS and plays rugby with Kinsale RFC.
Here is Louie’s piece reporting from the Aviva Stadium on Saturday.
Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes shattered by the French
Ireland’s Grand Slam chances ended on Saturday afternoon after losing to France 42-27 in a fierce battle at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
Simon Easterby, Caelan Doris and Josh van der Flier gave their perspectives on the match at the press conference after the game. The most asked question was what were Ireland missing to win the game?
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Josh van der Flier felt it was discipline: “It never helps when you give away penalties”.
Related to that point, Caelan Doris said the advantages they conceded gave France a licence to play. Van der Flier also spoke about the effect the yellow cards had on the match. He felt that once France got some momentum, Ireland just couldn’t bounce back.
Simon Easterby’s thoughts on the match were that his side were not clinical enough in the opposition 22 and conceded too easily. I asked if the result has been influenced by the experience of his side, considering some injuries in the squad.
He responded: “No, I don’t think so. We’ve come through some tight games in the last couple of seasons and all of the experiences you have in those tight games hopefully allow you, when you’re faced with those challenges again, to react in the right way and adapt to the situation.
“We had a lot of caps in the squad, a few of them were on the bench. I don’t think inexperience was the reason we lost the game. We just didn’t take enough of our opportunities and we conceded too many points ourselves in moments when had we prevented them from getting over the line, they wouldn’t have built that little bit of momentum. That’s probably the difference between the two sides today.”
Easterby was also asked about the injury to Antoine Dupont. He felt that it was a rugby incident and that these things happen in a game. French coach Fabien Galthié was very unhappy at the press conference and said that the French will be citing Tadhg Beirne.
Easterby was also asked about Calvin Nash’s yellow to which he responded: “It could have easily just gone as a rugby collision and it could easily have not resulted in a yellow card.”
Caelan Doris said he hopes Ireland can move on from this result, and produce their best performance yet in Rome next week − after all there is still a title to win.
