| Les Bleus win but Greens push them
 By
Graham Clifford
So into the Spring air emerge France with the Six Nations crown, but
Les Blues victory owes as much to luck as to their endeavour including
their championship-sealing defeat of Wales at the weekend.
The French trailed for all but the final five minutes of the game —
an early Wales try from Hal Lunscombe and impeccable kicking from Steven
Jones leaving the Valleys men 13-6 to the good at half-time.
The second-half was less expansive than the first. The French controlled
possession and cut their arrears to just two points before the match-winning
try from centre Florian Fritz to break Irish hearts.
France singularly failed to convince throughout this year’s championship.
Their loss to Scotland on the opening weekend reads better now than it
did in retrospect. It was a deserved defeat to a Scottish side which will
hardly trouble the frame at next year’s World Cup.
France laboured to their win against Italy and if it weren’t for
some of the worst defending ever produced by any Irish side the French
might have struggled for their win and were ultimately flattered by the
12-point margin of victory against Ireland — having being taught
a rugby lesson by the boys in Green in the second-half. France’s
only convincing performance was in their drubbing of England when they
played near to their full potential.
Ultimately if Ireland had played at anywhere near their normal standard
for the first half-an-hour of the game in Paris it would have been Brian
O’Driscoll lifting the Six Nations Crown at the weekend.
Scotland rounded off their encouraging Six Nations campaign with a defeat
of Italy proving the Tartan Army will be a force to reckon with in next
year’s competition and beyond.
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