France 43, Ireland 21
The Irish finally said goodbye to Melbourne with a whimper rather than a bang last night.
I don’t think I shall ever forget the sight of Keith Wood, playing his last World Cup game, taking a tap penalty and kicking ahead desperately in the 79th minute, with his side … 29 points behind.
They went on to score a last-minute try, but it was all too little, too late. Poor old Wood, he deserves so much better.
The merciless television cameras caught him after the final whistle of his World Cup career. With blood shot eyes he muttered: “It was very disappointing. We just didn’t play in the first half. We tried to adapt, but that first half was the worst we played in the tournament.”
He went off nodding his head in confusion as French skipper Fabien Galthie stepped up to gloat in to the telly mic.
How could Ireland surrender like that after a they had painted Australia’s greyest town green for a wonderful fortnight?
It was in Australia’s second city that their Gaelic Footballers beat the Aussie Rules players at the MCG a week ago. It was in the same Telstra Dome that the Irish got within a point of Australia last Saturday, before the Green Army decamped for Flemingon and the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday.
The Irish, armed only with Guiness and hope, turned up in their thousands (unlike the Aussies and French, there were 15 000 unsold tickets) to see what was supposed to be the closest of the four quarter-finals yesterday. Eddie O’Sullivan’s men had won three of the last four against the gaulling Gauls and we had reason to expect a battle to the death.
But this game was dead after three minutes as Frederic Michalak, the man of the tournament so far, tore the Irish apart. They might be beatable in the Six Nations, but they always get to the semi-finals at World Cups. This was Ireland’s fourth attempt… and they’ve never got to the last four.
Captain Keith Wood apart, the Irish looked much like South Africa during their defeat against the All Blacks the night before.
Listless, uninspired… until it was too late. Were they tired? Had the pool games, particularly the epic against the Wobblies, left them mentally and physically exhausted?
Probably. The thing is, France have yet to be seriously tested here. They put 50 points past Scotland and Fiji in their tightest pool games and they look the smoothest of the contenders so far.
While England coach Clive Woodward may have watched Australia and New Zealand in their quarter-finals last night looking umimpressive before next Saturday’s semi-final in Sydney, he knows France are, typically, right on song before Sunday’s match up against England (I’m writing this before tonight’s quarter final against Wales, more in hope than expectation).
Fabien Galthie makes our off-form scrum-halves look pedestrian, Michalak at 21 is looking stronger on all fronts than our tense 24-year-old Jonny Wilkinson and the French loose trio are, quite simply, head and shoulders ahead of our guys.
These are worrying times for Francophobes, and England boasts plenty of those.
Michalak struck the first blow after just three minutes, his delightful chip bouncing beyond the outnumbered Irish fullback Girvan Dempsey for Olivier Magne to score. The 21-year-old fly-half Michalak, still playing at scrum-half for the Under 21s as recently as February, added the conversion.
For the next 20 minutes, The Irish were forced to defend for their jolly green lives. Twice the French were chalk-dust away from scoring as Michalak sprayed the ball around by hand and foot. But the only addition to the score was a 20th minute penalty from an acute angle, coolly placed between the uprights by Michalak.
I bet he doesn’t train on Christmas Day like our obsessed Wilko, but he didn’t miss a kick in nine attempts from all sorts of angles last night.
Ireland had one chance in the first half hour, a line-out a yard out. It was all going to plan until huge wing Shane Horgan was brought down and penalised for hanging on.
Then an awful error. Ireland on the attack mislaid a vital pass, Serge Betsen got his hands on the ball and even Horgan couldn’t catch flying French wing Christophe Dominici. Michalak converted and it was 17-0 after half an hour.
Try number three came along soon after, Imanol Harinordoquy cruising past the pathetic Irish tackling, Peter Stringer barely getting a hand on him, to dive into another scoring position for the deadly Michalak, 24-0.
Ireland were barely competing by now. The French had quicker hands… and quicker feet. While the greens were looking for the ball, Les Bleus were looking for another scoring opportunity. South African referee Jonathan Kaplan soon gifted them three more points with a curious off-side penalty which Michalak slotted to make it 27-0 before the half-time whistle.
That soon became 37-0 with Michalak converting another wonder try for his prop and scoring another penalty before, finally, Kevin Maggs put Ireland on the board with a lovely 50th minute try and Humphreys, on for O’Gara, converted. They could have scored another but Humphreys dropped a simple pass five yards out.
Michalak, four conversions and four penalties, kept the good stuff going as France reached 40-7 with a penalty for raking.
With a Frenchman in the sin-bin, Humphreys made up for his mistake, sending a perfect bobbler through for Brian O’Driscoll to make his belated impact on the game. His 20th international try was converted but at 40-14 with 15 minutes to play, it hardly mattered.
Michalak made it 100 points for the tournament with a 72nd minute penalty. A perfect 23 points on the day to add to his 78 in qualifying.
Wilkinson surely can’t catch him now.
With Wood urging them on to the end, there was still time for another O’Driscoll try and a Humphreys conversion.
And at the whistle, there was Wood, warmly hugging Galthie… taking defeat on the chin, like all true champions.
They went down in a huddle at the end, all 30 of them and numerous officials, while O’Sullivan had a final word.
I don’t think it was very complimentary.