Dreaming big is not the Irish way but this brilliant team are rewriting all the old rules
NOTICE is served. Whether they admit it or not, this is an Irish side with talent to justify the richest ambitions.
A second Grand Slam in six years is now a strong possibility, but the dream can be maintained beyond the first fortnight in March.
The limits of what this Ireland team can achieve may not be realised until spring and summer are past, and we have seen off most of the autumn, too.
Yes, yes, be careful of loose thinking and big talk. It’s not the Irish way.
But this isn’t the Irish way. Taking apart a French team that increasingly attracts the word vintage is not the way of Irish teams.
Rugby in Ireland, even in the professional age and with all of its transformational effects, is in an uncharted place.
This is judged the best team in the world, and following a series win in New Zealand last summer and victory over world champions South Africa last November, they hardened that status with victory in this wonderful game.
Beating France at home is nothing new, but doing it in this manner is
This felt less like a match than an occasion, an immersion in sport played at a stunning level.
The past 20 years has seen Irish teams break old shibboleths repeatedly. In that vein, beating France at home is nothing new, but doing it in this manner is.
This feels like a game that could be as consequential as that winning tour in New Zealand.
It was a Six Nations weekend in all its familiar old glory, but also one conforming to a vibrant new order, too, with Ireland at its head.
Thousands mobbing south Dublin in anticipation of a France Test is a decades-old event, but doing so and expecting an Irish victory is a much more modern phenomenon.
They came in expectation of victory, from France but also from around the island. What united them was the certainty that this would be wonderful.
What unfolded was bolder and more exciting than the most indulgent day-dream.
A Six Nations Test with this much quality is rare, even in this vibrant Irish age.
The first half alone contained more precision and high-speed execution than whole generations of the past.
Repercussions for the championship and the World Cup were briefly forgotten as the ground was held in thrall by a tremendous contest. It consumed all.
Any meaning beyond the 80 minutes blurred into irrelevance for the afternoon; nothing mattered but the contest, and that was ornamented by wonder from both sides.
Hugo Keenan careered through new levels of excellence, even by his steepling standards. James Lowe starred with boot and ball in hand. Stuart McCloskey plays with the insatiable hunger of a man on the outside too long.
Andrew Porter, Finlay Bealham, James Ryan, Caelan Doris: the pack heaves with talent and players at the high points of their careers.
Against that is a French side that is the perfect amalgam of the country’s two great rugby traditions: fearsome forward power and fluent attacking play.
The astonishing Antoine Dupont combined the two with a tackle on Mack Hansen shortly before half time that denied Ireland a try but which also defied sporting sense. Dupont is small but packed with power, but the way he held up the Connacht winger and pushed him towards the sideline was remarkable.
Dupont was the fizzing centre of French attacks, invariably the man running on to an off-load or darting through a crack only he saw, irresistible as water.
For a game to be this good, excellence is mixed with error; the two teams were so good that they forced the other into mistakes. This was clear in Damian Penaud’s try, with Johnny Sexton too easily fended by Anthony Jelonch and then Hansen failing to cut down Penaud.
That, though, was only a consequence of the stress applied by a brilliant attack.
Minutes earlier, Romain Ntamack sat on the grass looking confounded after Bealham’s clever switch opened the way for Keenan’s try.
A fair indication of how good the game was came via the full stands and the small dribble of traffic up and down the stairs to the bars and toilets.
The eagerness of supporters to spend more time queuing for beer than watching the game ruined the November Tests for many, but appetites were sated by the rugby here.
It was one more happy feature of an invigorating day.
And this was a championship fully inoculated against the disruptions of Covid.
This was a February weekend as light and giddy and happy as any prior to the dark spring of 2020.
Thousands of French supporters milled around the streets of central Dublin from mid-morning. Having vacated their hotels and guesthouses, they put in the hours as best they could.
Awkward-looking groups of heavyset men, the bulk of their playing days softened and swelled, gawked in shop windows on Grafton Street.
Some clutched bagfuls of tat from tourist shops, others held coffee cups until the day got old enough to justify the pub.
By midday, the city was ablaze in blue and red and green, and little did those excited fans realise just how fully their hopes would be met.
As beguiling as the attacking rugby was, the physical intensity was wince-making, too. At one point, the French flanker Charles Ollivon
carried into a knuckle of Irish defenders and his oof at the point of contact was easily heard on the ref mic.
The sobering effects of it all were to be seen in the high tackle by Uini Atonio on Rob Herring, and the aftermath was one disquieting moment in the game.
Herring eventually went off as the teams were preparing to scrum down five metres from the French posts, after Atonio went to the sin-bin.
Why there was a delay in removing him wasn’t clear, but in rugby’s ongoing engagement with concussion, prompt intervention is vital from the welfare aspect, but the need to be seen to take such issues serious is important, too.
Those players that didn’t suffer significant blows like Herring will still ache today, and the coming week off is unlikely to see too many of these men exert themselves.
Farrell could be minded, too, to give Sexton and some of his other greybeards the trip to Rome off in 13 days’ time. Ireland are at a point now where the Italy game should be considered with at least some of the planning devoted to the fixtures against Scotland and England coming up in March.
Yes, yes, that sounds like getting ahead of ourselves. But where else is there to go after a win like this?
It was a performance of rare brilliance, even for this group.
They lead the world, out on their own.