Ireland's Grand Slam Chase ended in a road hole here, and their championship aspirations also bruised, relying on things in the final round next weekend. Hopes that Peter O'Mahony, Conor Murray and Sian Healy could win a big final game on Lansdowne Road have now been decommissioned yet far.
France was initially wrapped in defence, but then when they survived that onslaught, they put together the rest of the game. And they managed it for 50 minutes without Antoine DuPont.
By the end, Ireland was chasing bonus points to help them on the last day, but there was also a shortage on that. Forty-five minutes, the epic Test match was a completely different thing.
The start was pulsating. Ireland was supported on the line and a penalty was returned from woodworking while France made an attempt to be excluded for a forward pass. And it was all 14 minutes.
If you were wondering about the effects of France before the game, if you could get the perfect balance between the power game and the great skills, it quickly changed to the quality of their defense. It certainly threw one of the most skewed statistics seen in Test Rugby. Within the opening 15 minutes, the awayside is only 4 from the hosts, with 81 tackles.
How did you leave the French triline as is? This is because the effect of double-teaming in defense slowed Ireland's momentum and allowed the process to start over again. The light at the end of this tunnel in Ireland was certainly the French exhaustion of steam.
The flip side was that all possessions only got 6 points in 40 minutes (40 minutes when Ireland's favorable tackle front slowed down to 2:1 ratio.
The only attempt in half was a clinical effort from a Louis Beer Byarray, a Tricecoring machine, a few seconds after Joe McCarthy was sent to Singh Bin.
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However, the most important incident in 40 stuffings 30 minutes after Tadhg Beirne landed in his knee with a breakdown was the exit for DuPont. There was a 7-1 split on the bench, and the second half was facing 8-6, sweating as France got more injured behind the scrum.
Ireland had to speed up the phase game and did so quickly, providing a platform for Dancey Han's attempts. The advantage lasted all four minutes, and then hit from Paul Bhudegent first and then from a beer byalay, until he hit with a double shot. France 22-13, and Sinbin's Calvin Nash appeared to lead in the match, with the alternative getting caught up in action. That's when power and pace reach the same page and force a depleted home team to work overtime to keep them alive.
There was a risk of getting ugly from there, and some recent attempts from Healy and Jack Conan balanced the scoreline a bit. But it did not relieve the pain of the green person.
